FROM   A   PHOTOGRAPH    TAKEN    IN    1899 
By  H,  W.  Qarnett,  London 


IN    DEFENSE    OF 

HARRIET    SHELLEY 

AND  OTHER   ESSAYS 


BY 

MARK   TWAIN 

(SAMUEL  L.  CLEMENS) 


I  LLU  STR AT  E  D 


HARPER    &    BROTHERS    PUBLISHERS 

NEW    YORK    AND     LONDON 


BOOKS  BY 
MARK    TWAIN 

THE  INNOCENTS  ABROAD 

ROUGHING  IT 

THE  GILDED  AGE 

A  TRAMP  ABROAD 

FOLLOWING  THE  EQUATOR 

PUDD'NHEAD  WILSON 

SKETCHES  NEW  AND  OLD 

THE  AMERICAN  CLAIMANT 

CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE 

A  CONNECTICUT  YANKEE  AT  THE  COURT  OF 
KING  ARTHUR 

THE  ADVENTURES  OF  HUCKLEBERRY   FINN 

PERSONAL  RECOLLECTIONS  OF  JOAN  OF  ARC 

LIFE  ON  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

THE  MAN  THAT  CORRUPTED  HADLEYBUKG 

THE  PRINCE  AND  THE  PAUPER 

THE  $30,000  BEQUEST 
—  THE  ADVENTURES  OF  TOM  SAWYER 

TOM  SAWYER  ABROAD 

WHAT  IS  MAN? 

THE  MYSTERIOUS  STRANGER 

ADAM'S  DIARY 

A  DOG'S  TALE 

A  DOUBLE-BARRELED  DETECTIVE  STORY 

EDITORIAL  WILD  OATS 

EVE'S  DIARY 

'-IN     DEFENSE     OF     HARRIET     SHELLEY    AND 
OTHER   ESSAYS 

IS  SHAKESPEARE  DEAD? 

CAPT.  STORMFIELD'S  VISIT  TO  HEAVEN 

A  HORSE'S  TALE 

THE  JUMPING  FROG 

THE  £1,000,000  BANK-NOTE 

TRAVELS  AT  HOME 

TRAVELS  IN  HISTORY 

MARK  TWAIN'S  LETTERS 
MARK  TWAIN'S  SPEECHES 


Copyright.  1897,  189$,  1899?  bjj  HARPER  &  BROTHERS 

I  I/  :C${jS™gkt^:8J>2,  $y^»L.  WEBSTER  &  Co. 

Copyright,  1898,  by  THE  CENTURY  Co. 

Copyright,  1898,  by  THE  COSMOPOLITAN 

Copyright,  1899,  by  SAMUEL  E.  MOFFETT 

Copyright,  1918,  by  THE  MARK  TWAIN  COMPANY 

Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


H 


p 

CONTENTS 

PAGE 

IN  DEFENSE  OF  HARRIET  SHELLEY i 

FENIMORE  COOPER'S  LITERARY  OFFENSES  60 

*  TRAVELING  WITH  A  REFORMER 78 

PRIVATE  HISTORY  OF  THE  "JUMPING  FROG"  STORY  .  .  .  100 

MENTAL  TELEGRAPHY  in 

MENTAL  TELEGRAPHY  AGAIN 138 

WHAT  PAUL  BOURGET  THINKS  OF  Us 148 

A  LITTLE  NOTE  TO  M.  PAUL  BOURGET 171 

THE  INVALID'S  STORY  187 

STIRRING  TIMES  IN  AUSTRIA 197 

THE  GERMAN  CHICAGO 244 

rf  CONCERNING  THE  JEWS 263 

ABOUT  ALL  KINDS  OF  SHIPS 288 

FROM  THE  "LONDON  TIMES"  OF  1904 313 

A  MAJESTIC  LITERARY  FOSSIL  329 

AT  THE  APPETITE  CURE 346 

/SAINT  JOAN  OF  ARC 363 

IN  MEMORIAM 384 

A  BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH 387 


Acknowledgment  is  hereby  made  to  Harper  &  Brothers,  The 
Century  Company,  The  Cosmopolitan,  and  S.  S.  McClure  &  Co., 
for  courtesy  shown  in  allowing  the  reprint  in  this  volume  of  a 
number  of  their  articles. 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

MARK  TWAIN,  FROM  A  PHOTOGRAPH  TAKEN  IN  1899      Frontispiece 
THESE  OTHER  SMELLS  SEEMED  TO  GIVE  IT  A  BETTER 

HOLD   ....  Facing  p.  194 

HE  EATS  A  BUTTERFLY "       360 


IN  DEFENSE  OF  HARRIET 
SHELLEY 


1HAVE  committed  sins,  of  course;  but  I  have 
not  committed  enough  of  them  to  entitle  me  to 
the  punishment  of  reduction  to  the  bread  and  water 
of  ordinary  literature  during  six  years  when  I  might 
have  been  living  on  the  fat  diet  spread  for  the 
righteous  in  Professor  Dowden's  Life  of  Shelley,  if 
I  had  been  justly  dealt  with. 

During  these  six  years  I  have  been  living  a  life  of 
peaceful  ignorance.  I  was  not  aware  that  Shelley's 
first  wife  was  unfaithful  to  him,  and  that  that  was 
why  he  deserted  her  and  wiped  the  stain  from  his 
sensitive  honor  by  entering  into  soiled  relations  with 
Godwin's  young  daughter.  This  was  all  new  to  me 
when  I  heard  it  lately,  and  was  told  that  the  proofs 
of  it  were  in  this  book,  and  that  this  book's  verdict 
is  accepted  in  the  girls'  colleges  of  America  and  its 
view  taught  in  their  literary  classes. 

In  each  of  these  six  years  multitudes  of  young 
people  in  our  country  have  arrived  at  the  Shelley- 
reading  age.  Are  these  six  multitudes  unacquainted 


TWAIN 


with  this  life  of  Shelley?  Perhaps  they  are;  indeed, 
one  may  feel  pretty  sure  that  the  great  bulk  of  them 
are.  To  these,  then,  I  address  myself,  in  the  hope 
that  some  account  of  this  romantic  historical  fable 
and  the  fabulist's  manner  of  constructing  and  adorn 
ing  it  may  interest  them. 

First,  as  to  its  literary  style.  Our  negroes  in 
America  have  several  ways  of  entertaining  them 
selves  which  are  not  found  among  the  whites  any 
where.  Among  these  inventions  of  theirs  is  one 
which  is  particularly  popular  with  them.  It  is  a 
competition  in  elegant  deportment.  They  hire  a 
hall  and  bank  the  spectators'  seats  in  rising  tiers 
along  the  two  sides,  leaving  all  the  middle  stretch  of 
the  floor  free.  A  cake  is  provided  as  a  prize  for 
the  winner  in  the  competition,  and  a  bench  of  ex 
perts  in  deportment  is  appointed  to  award  it.  Some 
times  there  are  as  many  as  fifty  contestants,  male 
and  female,  and  five  hundred  spectators.  One  at  a 
time  the  contestants  enter,  clothed  regardless  of  ex 
pense  in  what  each  considers  the  perfection  of  style 
and  taste,  and  walk  down  the  vacant  central  space 
and  back  again  with  that  multitude  of  critical  eyes 
on  them.  All  that  the  competitor  knows  of  fine  airs 
and  graces  he  throws  into  his  carriage,  all  that  he 
knows  of  seductive  expression  he  throws  into  his 
countenance.  He  may  use  all  the  helps  he  can 
devise:  watch-chain  to  twirl  with  his  fingers,  cane 
to  do  graceful  things  with,  snowy  handkerchief  to 
flourish  and  get  artful  effects  out  of,  shiny  new 
stovepipe  hat  to  assist  in  his  courtly  bows;  and  the 
colored  lady  may  have  a  fan  to  work  up  her  effects 


DEFENSE  OF  HARRIET  SHELLEY 

with,  and  smile  over  and  blush  behind,  and  she 
may  add  other  helps,  according  to  her  judgment. 
When  the  review  by  individual  detail  is  over,  a  grand 
review  of  all  the  contestants  in  procession  follows, 
with  all  the  airs  and  graces  and  all  the  bowings  and 
smirkings  on  exhibition  at  once,  and  this  enables 
the  bench  of  experts  to  make  the  necessary  compari 
sons  and  arrive  at  a  verdict.  The  successful  com 
petitor  gets  the  prize  which  I  have  before  mentioned, 
and  an  abundance  of  applause  and  envy  along  with 
it.  The  negroes  have  a  name  for  this  grave  deport 
ment  tournament;  a  name  taken  from  the  prize 
contended  for.  They  call  it  a  Cake-Walk. 

The  Shelley  biography  is  a  literary  cake-walk. 
The  ordinary  forms  of  speech  are  absent  from  it. 
All  the  pages,  all  the  paragraphs,  walk  by  sedately, 
elegantly,  not  to  say  mincingly,  in  their  Sunday- 
best,  shiny  and  sleek,  pertumed,  and  with  bouton- 
nidres  in  their  buttonholes;  it  is  rare  to  find  even  a 
chance  sentence  that  has  forgotten  to  dress.  If  the 
book  wishes  to  tell  us  that  Mary  Godwin,  child  of 
sixteen,  had  known  afflictions,  the  fact  saunters  forth 
in  this  nobby  outfit:  "Mary  was  herself  not  un 
learned  in  the  lore  of  pain" — meaning  by  that  that 
she  had  not  always  traveled  on  asphalt;  or,  as 
some  authorities  would  frame  it,  that  she  had  "been 
there  herself,"  a  form  which,  while  preferable  to  the 
book's  form,  is  still  not  to  be  recommended.  If  the 
book  wishes  to  tell  us  that  Harriet  Shelley  hired  a 
wet-nurse,  that  commonplace  fact  gets  turned  into  a 
dancing-master,  who  does  his  professional  bow  be 
fore  us  in  pumps  and  knee-breeches,  with  his  fiddle 

3 


i 


MARK    TWAIN 

under  one  arm  and  his  crush-hat  under  the  other, 
thus:  "The  beauty  of  Harriet's  motherly  relation 
to  her  babe  was  marred  in  Shelley's  eyes  by  the 
introduction  into  his  house  of  a  hireling  nurse  to 
whom  was  delegated  the  mother's  tenderest  office." 

This  is  perhaps  the  strangest  book  that  has  seen 
the  light  since  Frankenstein.  Indeed,  it  is  a  Frank 
enstein  itself;  a  Frankenstein  with  the  original  in 
firmity  supplemented  by  a  new  one;  a  Frankenstein 
with  the  reasoning  faculty  wanting.  Yet  it  believes 
it  can  reason,  and  is  always  trying.  It  is  not  con 
tent  to  leave  a  mountain  of  fact  standing  in  the  clear 
sunshine,  where  the  simplest  reader  can  perceive  its 
form,  its  details,  and  its  relation  to  the  rest  of  the 
landscape,  but  thinks  it  must  help  him  examine  it 
and  understand  it;  so  its  drifting  mind  settles  upon 
it  with  that  intent,  but  always  with  one  and  the  same 
result:  there  is  a  change  of  temperature  and  the 
mountain  is  hid  in  a  fog.  Every  time  it  sets  up  a 
premise  and  starts  to  reason  from  it,  there  is  a  sur 
prise  in  store  for  the  reader.  It  is  strangely  near 
sighted,  cross-eyed,  and  purblind.  Sometimes  when 
a  mastodon  walks  across  the  field  of  its  vision  it  takes 
it  for  a  rat ;  at  other  times  it  does  not  see  it  at  all. 

The  materials  of  this  biographical  fable  are  facts, 
rumors,  and  poetry.  They  are  connected  together 
and  harmonized  by  the  help  of  suggestion,  conjecture, 
innuendo,  perversion,  and  semi-suppression. 

The  fable  has  a  distinct  object  in  view,  but  this 
object  is  not  acknowledged  in  set  words.  Percy 
Bysshe  Shelley  has  done  something  which  in  the 
case  of  other  men  is  called  a  grave  crime ;  it  must 


DEFENSE  OF  HARRIET  SHELLEY 

be  shown  that  in  his  case  it  is  not  that,  because  he 
does  not  think  as  other  men  do  about  these  things. 

Ought  not  that  to  be  enough,  if  the  fabulist  is 
serious?  Having  proved  that  a  crime  is  not  a  crime, 
was  it  worth  while  to  go  on  and  fasten  the  respon 
sibility  of  a  crime  which  was  not  a  crime  upon  some 
body  else?  What  is  the  use  of  hunting  down  and 
holding  to  bitter  account  people  who  are  responsible 
for  other  people's  innocent  acts  ? 

Still,  the  fabulist  thinks  it  a  good  idea  to  do  that. 
In  his  view  Shelley's  first  wife,  Harriet,  free  of  all 
offense  as  far  as  we  have  historical  facts  for  guidance, 
must  be  held  unforgivably  responsible  for  her  hus 
band's  innocent  act  in  deserting  her  and  taking  up 
with  another  woman. 

Any  one  will  suspect  that  this  task  has  its  difficul 
ties.  Any  one  will  divine  that  nice  work  is  necessary 
here,  cautious  work,  wily  work,  and  that  there  is 
entertainment  to  be  had  in  watching  the  magician  do 
it.  There  is  indeed  entertainment  in  watching  him. 
He  arranges  his  facts,  his  rumors,  and  his  poems  on 
his  table  in  full  view  of  the  house,  and  shows  you 
that  everything  is  there — no  deception,  everything 
fair  and  aboveboard.  And  this  is  apparently  true, 
yet  there  is  a  defect,  for  some  of  his  best  stock  is 
hid  in  an  appendix-basket  behind  the  door,  and  you 
do  not  come  upon  it  until  the  exhibition  is  over  and 
the  enchantment  of  your  mind  accomplished— as 
the  magician  thinks. 

There  is  an  insistent  atmosphere  of  candor  and 
fairness  about  this  book  which  is  engaging  at  first, 
then  a  little  burdensome,  then  a  trifle  fatiguing,  then 

5 


MARK    TWAIN 

progressively  suspicious,  annoying,  irritating,  and 
oppressive.  It  takes  one  some  little  time  to  find  out 
that  phrases  which  seem  intended  to  guide  the  reader 
aright  are  there  to  mislead  him;  that  phrases  which 
seem  intended  to  throw  light  are  there  to  throw 
darkness;  that"  phrases  which  seem  intended  to 
interpret  a  fact  are  there  to  misinterpret  it;  that 
phrases  which  seem  intended  to  forestall  prejudice 
are  there  to  create  it ;  that  phrases  which  seem  anti 
dotes  are  poisons  in  disguise.  The  naked  facts  ar 
rayed  in  the  book  establish  Shelley's  guilt  in  that 
one  episode  which  disfigures  his  otherwise  super 
latively  lofty  and  beautiful  life;  but  the  historian's 
careful  and  methodical  misinterpretation  of  them 
transfers  the  responsibility  to  the  wife's  shoulders — 
as  he  persuades  himself.  The  few  meager  facts  of 
Harriet  Shelley's  life,  as  furnished  by  the  book, 
acquit  her  of  offense;  but  by  calling  in  the  for 
bidden  helps  of  rumor,  gossip,  conjecture,  insinua 
tion,  and  innuendo  he  destroys  her  character  and 
rehabilitates  Shelley's — as  he  believes.  And  in  truth 
his  unheroic  work  has  not  been  barren  of  the  results 
he  aimed  at;  as  witness  the  assertion  made  to  me 
that  girls  in  the  colleges  of  America  are  taught  that 
Harriet  Shelley  put  a  stain  upon  her  husband's 
honor,  and  that  that  was  what  stung  him  into  re- 
purifying  himself  by  deserting  her  and  his  child  and 
entering  into  scandalous  relations  with  a  school-girl 
acquaintance  of  his. 

If  that  assertion  is  true,  they  probably  use  a  re 
duction  of  this  work  in  those  colleges,  maybe  only  a 
sketch  outlined  from  it.  Such  a  thing  as  that  could 

6 


DEFENSE  OF  HARRIET  SHELLEY 

be  harmful  and  misleading.  They  ought  to  cast  it 
out  and  put  the  whole  book  in  its  place.  It  would 
not  deceive.  It  would  not  deceive  the  janitor. 

All  of  this  book  is  interesting  on  account  of  the 
sorcerer's  methods  and  the  attractiveness  of  some  of 
his  characters  and  the  repulsiveness  of  the  rest,  but 
no  part  of  it  is  so  much  so  as  are  the  chapters  wherein 
he  tries  to  think  he  thinks  he  sets  forth  the  causes 
which  led  to  Shelley's  desertion  of  his  wife  in  1814. 

Harriet  Westbrook  was  a  school-girl  sixteen  years 
old.  Shelley  was  teeming  with  advanced  thought. 
He  believed  that  Christianity  was  a  degrading  and 
selfish  superstition,  and  he  had  a  deep  and  sincere 
desire  to  rescue  one  of  his  sisters  from  it.  Harriet 
was  impressed  by  his  various  philosophies  and  looked 
upon  him  as  an  intellectual  wonder — which  indeed 
he  was.  He  had  an  idea  that  she  could  give  him 
valuable  help  in  his  scheme  regarding  his  sister; 
therefore  he  asked  her  to  correspond  with  him.  She 
was  quite  willing.  Shelley  was  not  thinking  of  love, 
for  he  was  just  getting  over  a  passion  for  his  cousin, 
Harriet  Grove,  and  just  getting  well  steeped  in  one 
for  Miss  Kitchener,  a  school-teacher.  What  might 
happen  to  Harriet  Westbrook  before  the  letter- 
writing  was  ended  did  not  enter  his  mind.  Yet  an 
older  person  could  have  made  a  good  guess  at  it, 
for  in  person  Shelley  was  as  beautiful  as  an  angel, 
he  was  frank,  sweet,  winning,  unassuming,  and  so 
rich  in  unselfishness,  generosities,  and  magnanimities 
that  he  made  his  whole  generation  seem  poor  in 
these  great  qualities  by  comparison.  Besides,  he  was 
in  distress.  His  college  had  expelled  him  for  writing 
2  r 


MARK    TWAIN 

an  atheistical  pamphlet  and  afflicting  the  reverend 
heads  of  the  university  with  it,  his  rich  father  and 
grandfather  had  closed  their  purses  against  him,  his 
friends  were  cold.  Necessarily,  Harriet  fell  in  love 
with  him;  and  so  deeply,  indeed,  that  there  was  no 
way  for  Shelley  to  save  her  from  suicide  but  to 
marry  her.  He  believed  himself  to  blame  for  this 
state  of  things,  so  the  marriage  took  place.  He  was 
pretty  fairly  in  love  with  Harriet,  although  he  loved 
Miss  Kitchener  better.  He  wrote  and  explained  the 
case  to  Miss  Kitchener  after  the  wedding,  and  he 
could  not  have  been  .franker  or  more  naive  and  less 
stirred  up  about  the  circumstance  if  the  matter  in 
issue  had  been  a  commercial  transaction  involving 
thirty-five  dollars. 

Shelley  was  nineteen.  He  was  not  a  youth,  but 
a  man.  He  had  never  had  any  youth.  He  was  an 
erratic  ,and  fantastic  child  during  eighteen  years, 
then  he  stepped  into  manhood,  as  one  steps  over  a 
door-sill.  He  was  curiously  mature  at  nineteen  in 
his  ability  to  do  independent  thinking  on  the  deep 
questions  of  life  and  to  arrive  at  sharply  definite 
decisions  regarding  them,  and  stick  to  them — stick 
to  them  and  stand  by  them  at  cost  of  bread,  friend 
ships,  esteem,  respect,  and  approbation. 

For  the  sake  of  his  opinions  he  was  willing  to 
sacrifice  all  these  valuable  things,  and  did  sacrifice 
them;  and  went  on  doing  it,  too,  when  he  could  at 
any  moment  have  made  himself  ridh  and  supplied  him 
self  with  friends  and  esteem  by  compromising  with  his 
father,  at  the  moderate  expense  of  throwing  overboard 
one  or  two  indifferent  details  of  his  cargo  of  principles. 


DEFENSE  OF  HARRIET  SHELLEY 

He  and  Harriet  eloped  to  Scotland  and  got  mar 
ried.  They  took  lodgings  in  Edinburgh  of  a  sort 
answerable  to  their  purse,  which  was  about  empty, 
and  there  their  life  was  a  happy  one  and  grew  daily 
more  so.  They  had  only  themselves  for  company, 
but  they  needed  no  additions  to  it.  They  were  as 
cozy  and  contented  as  birds  in  a  nest.  Harriet  sang 
evenings  or  read  aloud ;  also  she  studied  and  tried  to 
improve  her  mind,  her  husband  instructing  her  in 
Latin.  She  was  very  beautiful,  she  was  modest, 
quiet,  genuine,  and,  according  to  her  husband's 
testimony,  she  had  no  fine-lady  airs  or  aspirations 
about  her.  In  Matthew  Arnold's  judgment,  she  was 
"a  pleasing  figure." 

The  pair  remained  five  weeks  in  Edinburgh,  and 
then  took  lodgings  in  York,  where  Shelley's  college- 
mate,  Hogg,  lived.  Shelley  presently  ran  down  to 
London,  and  Hogg  took  this  opportunity  to  make 
love  to  the  young  wife.  She  repulsed  him,  and  re 
ported  the  fact  to  her  husband  when  he  got  back. 
It  seems  a  pity  that  Shelley  did  not  copy  this  credit 
able  conduct  of  hers  some  time  or  other  when  under 
temptation,  so  that  we  might  have  seen  the  author  of 
his  biography  hang  the  miracle  in  the  skies  and  squirt 
rainbows  at  it. 

At  the  end  of  the  first  year  of  marriage — the  most 
trying  year  for  any  young  couple,  for  then  the  mutual 
failings  are  coming  one  by  one  to  light,  and  the 
necessary  adjustments  are  being  made  in  pain  and 
tribulation — Shelley  was  able  to  recognize  that  his 
marriage  venture  had  been  a  safe  one.  As  we  have 
seen,  his  love  for  his  wife  had  begun  in  a  rather 
2  9 


MARK    TWAIN 

shallow  way  and  with  not  much  force,  but  now  it 
was  become  deep  and  strong,  which  entitles  his  wife 
to  a  broad  credit  mark,  one  may  admit.  He  ad 
dresses  a  long  and  loving  poem  to  her,  in  which  both 
passion  and  worship  appear: 

Exhibit  A 

O  thou 

Whose  dear  love  gleamed  upon  the  gloomy  path 
Which  this  lone  spirit  travelled,  \ 

.  .  .  wilt  thou  not  turn 
Those  spirit-beaming  eyes  and  look  on  me, 
Until  I  be  assured  that  Earth  is  Heaven 
And  Heaven  is  Earth? 

Harriet!  let  death  all  mortal  ties  dissolve, 
But  ours  shall  not  be  mortal. 

Shelley  also  wrote  a  sonnet  to  her  in  August  of 
this  same  year  in  celebration  of  her  birthday : 

Exhibit  B 

Ever  as  now  with  Love  and  Virtue's  glow 
May  thy  unwithering  soul  not  cease  to  burn, 

Still  may  thine  heart  with  those  pure  thoughts  o'erflow 
Which  force  from  mine  such  quick  and  warm  return. 

Was  the  girl  of  seventeen  glad  and  proud  and 
happy?  We  may  conjecture  that  she  was. 

That  was  the  year  1812.  Another  year  passed — ' 
still  happily,  still  successfully — a  child  was  born  in 
June,  1813,  and  in  September,  three  months  later, 
Shelley  addresses  a  poem  to  this  child,  lanthe,  in 
which  he  points  out  just  when  the  little  creature  is 
most  particularly  dear  to  him: 

10 


DEFENSE  OF  HARRIET  SHELLEY 

Exhibit  C 

Dearest  when  most  thy  tender  traits  express 
The  image  of  thy  mother's  loveliness. 

Up  to  this  point  the  fabulist  counsel  for  Shelley 
and  prosecutor  of  his  young  wife  has  had  easy  sailing, 
but  now  his  trouble  begins,  for  Shelley  is  getting 
ready  to  make  some  unpleasant  history  for  himself, 
and  it  will  be  necessary  to  put  the  blame  of  it  on 
the  wife. 

Shelley  had  made  the  acquaintance  of  a  charming 
gray-haired,  young-hearted  Mrs.  Boinville,  whose 
face  " retained  a  certain  youthful  beauty";  she  lived 
at  Bracknell,  and  had  a  young  daughter  named 
Cornelia  Turner,  who  was  equipped  with  many  fasci 
nations.  Apparently  these  people  were  sufficiently 
sentimental.  Hogg  says  of  Mrs.  Boinville: 

"  The  greater  part  of  her  associates  were  odious.  I  generally 
found  there  two  or  three  sentimental  young  butchers,  an  emi 
nently  philosophical  tinker,  and  several  very  unsophisticated 
medical  practitioners  or  medical  students,  all  of  low  origin  and 
vulgar  and  offensive  manners.  They  sighed,  turned  up  their 
eyes,  retailed  philosophy,  such  as  it  was,"  etc. 

Shelley  moved  to  Bracknell,  July  2 7th  (this  is 
still  1813)  purposely  to  be  near  this  unwholesome 
prairie-dogs'  nest.  The  fabulist  says:  "It  was  the 
entrance  into  a  world  more  amiable  and  exquisite 
than  he  had  yet  known." 

"In  this  acquaintance  the  attraction  was  mutual" 
— and  presently  it  grew  to  be  very  mutual  indeed, 
between  Shelley  and  Cornelia  Turner,  when  they  got 
to  studying  the  Italian  poets  together.  Shelley, 

li 


MARK    TWAIN 

"  responding  like  a  tremulous  instrument  to  every 
breath  of  passion  or  of  sentiment,"  had  his  chance 
here.  It  took  only  four  days  for  Cornelia's  attrac 
tions  to  begin  to  dim  Harriet's.  Shelley  arrived  on 
the  2yth  of  July;  on  the  3ist  he  wrote  a  sonnet  to 
Harriet  in  which  "one  detects  already  the  little  rift 
in  the  lover's  lute  which  had  seemed  to  be  healed 
or  never  to  have  gaped  at  all  when  the  later  and 
happier  sonnet  to  lanthe  was  written" — in  Septem 
ber,  we  remember: 

Exhibit  D 
EVENING.    TO  HARRIET 

O  them  bright  Sun!    Beneath  the  dark  blue  line 

Of  western  distance  that  sublime  descendest, 

And,  gleaming  lovelier  as  thy  beams  decline, 

Thy  million  hues  to  every  vapor  lendest, 

And  over  cobweb,  lawn,  and  grove,  and  stream 

Sheddest  the  liquid  magic  of  thy  light, 

Till  calm  Earth,  with  the  parting  splendor  bright, 

Shows  like  the  vision  of  a  beauteous  dream ; 

What  gazer  now  with  astronomic  eye 

Could  coldly  count  the  spots  within  thy  sphere? 

Such  were  thy  lover,  Harriet,  could  he  fly 

The  thoughts  of  all  that  makes  his  passion  dear, 

And  turning  senseless  from  thy  warm  caress 

Pick  flaws  in  our  close- woven  happiness. 

I  cannot  find  the  "rift";  still  it  may  be  there. 
What  the  poem  seems  to  say  is,  that  a  person  would 
be  coldly  ungrateful  who  could  consent  to  count  and 
consider  little  spots  and  flaws  in  such  a  warm,  great, 
satisfying  sun  as  Harriet  is.  It  is  a  "little  rift  which 
had  seemed  to  be  healed,  or  never  to  have  gaped  at 
all."  That  is,  "one  detects"  a  little  rift  which  per- 

13 


DEFENSE  OP  HARRIET  SHELLEY 

haps  had  never  existed.  How  does  one  do  that? 
How  does  one  see  the  invisible?  It  is  the  fabulist's 
secret;  he  knows  how  to  detect  what  does  not  exist, 
he  knows  how  to  see  what  is  not  seeable;  it  is  his  gift, 
and  he  works  it  many  a  time  to  poor  dead  Harriet 
Shelley's  deep  damage. 

"As  yet,  however,  if  there  was  a  speck  upon 
Shelley's  happiness  it  was  no  more  than  a  speck" 
—meaning  the  one  which  one  detects  where  "it  may 
never  have  gaped  at  all"-  -"nor  had  Harriet  cause 
for  discontent." 

Shelley's  Latin  instructions  to  his  wife  had  ceased. 
"From  a  teacher  he  had  now  become  a  pupil." 
Mrs.  BoinviHe  and  her  young  married  daughter 
Cornelia  were  teaching  him  Italian  poetry;  a  fact 
which  warns  one  to  receive  with  some  caution  that 
other  statement  that  Harriet  had  no  "cause  for  dis 
content." 

Shelley  had  stopped  instructing  Harriet  in  Latin, 
as  before  mentioned.  The  biographer  thinks  that 
the  busy  life  in  London  some  time  back,  and  the 
intrusion  of  the  baby,  account  for  this.  These  were 
hindrances,  but  were  there  no  others?  He  is  always 
overlooking  a  detail  here  and  there  that  might  be 
valuable  in  helping  us  understand  a  situation.  For 
instance,  when  a  man  has  been  hard  at  work  at  the 
Italian  poets  with  a  pretty  woman,  hour  after  hour, 
and  responding  like  a  tremulous  instrument  to  every 
breath  of  passion  or  of  sentiment  in  the  mean  time, 
that  man  is  dog-tired  when  he  gets  home,  and  he 
can't  teach  his  wife  Latin;  it  would  be  unreasonable 
to  expect  it. 

13 


MARK    TWAIN 

Up  to  this  time  we  have  submitted  to  having  Mrs. 
Boinville  pushed  upon  us  as  ostensibly  concerned  in 
these  Italian  lessons,  but  the  biographer  drops  her 
now,  of  his  own  accord.  Cornelia  "perhaps"  is  sole 
teacher.  Hogg  says  she  was  a  prey  to  a  kind  of 
sweet  melancholy,  arising  from  causes  purely  im 
aginary;  she  required  consolation,  and  found  it  in 
Petrarch.  He  also  says,  "Bysshe  entered  at  once 
fully  into  her  views  and  caught  the  soft  infection, 
breathing  the  tenderest  and  sweetest  melancholy,  as 
every  true  poet  ought." 

Then  the  author  of  the  book  interlards  a  most 
stately  and  fine  compliment  to  Cornelia,  furnished 
by  a  man  of  approved  judgment  who  knew  her  well 
"in  later  years."  It  is  a  very  good  compliment 
indeed,  and  she  no  doubt  deserved  it  in  her  "later 
years,"  when  she  had  for  generations  ceased  to  be 
sentimental  and  lackadaisical,  and  was  no  longer  en 
gaged  in  enchanting  young  husbands  and  sowing 
sorrow  for  young  wives.  But  why  is  that  compliment 
to  that  old  gentlewoman  intruded  there?  Is  it  to 
make  the  reader  believe  she  was  well-chosen  and 
safe  society  for  a  young,  sentimental  husband? 
The  biographer's  device  was  not  well  planned.  That 
old  person  was  not  present — it  was  her  other  self  that 
was  there,  her  young,  sentimental,  melancholy, 
warm-blooded  self,  in  those  early  sweet  times  be 
fore  antiquity  had  cooled  her  off  and  mossed  her 
back. 

"In  choosing  for  friends  such  women  as  Mrs. 
Newton,  Mrs.  Boinville,  and  Cornelia  Turner,  Shel 
ley  gave  good  proof  of  his  insight  and  discrimi- 

14 


DEFENSE  OF  HARRIET  SHELLEY 

nation."  That  is  the  fabulist's  opinion — Harriet 
Shelley's  is  not  reported. 

Early  in  August,  Shelley  was  in  London  trying  to 
raise  money.  In  September  he  wrote  the  poem  to 
the  baby,  already  quoted  from.  In  the  first  week  of 
October  Shelley  and  family  went  to  Warwick,  then 
to  Edinburgh,  arriving  there  about  the  middle  of  the 
month. 

"Harriet  was  happy.'*  Why?  The  author  fur 
nishes  a  reason,  but  hides  from  us  whether  it  is 
history  or  conjecture;  it  is  because  "the  babe  had 
borne  the  journey  well."  It  has  all  the  aspect  of  one 
of  his  artful  devices — flung  in  in  his  favorite  casual 
way — the  way  he  has  when  he  wants  to  draw  one's 
attention  away  from  an  obvious  thing  and  amuse  it 
with  some  trifle  that  is  less  obvious  but  more  useful 
—in  a  history  like  this.  The  obvious  thing  is,  that 
Harriet  was  happy  because  there  was  much  territory 
between  her  husband  and  Cornelia  Turner  now ;  and 
because  the  perilous  Italian  lessons  were  taking  a 
rest ;  and  because,  if  there  chanced  to  be  any  respond- 
ings  like  a  tremulous  instrument  to  every  breath  of 
passion  or  of  sentiment  in  stock  in  these  days,  she 
might  hope  to  get  a  share  of  them  herself;  and  be 
cause,  with  her  husband  liberated,  now,  from  the 
fetid  fascinations  of  that  sentimental  retreat  so 
pitilessly  described  by  Hogg,  who  also  dubbed  it 
"Shelley's  paradise"  later,  she  might  hope  to  per 
suade  him  to  stay  away  from  it  permanently;  and 
because  she  might  also  hope  that  his  brain  would 
cool,  now,  and  his  heart  become  healthy,  and  both 
brain  and  heart  consider  the  situation  and  resolve 

15 


MARK    TWAIN 

that  it  would  be  a  right  and  manly  thing  to  stand  by 
this  girl  wife  and  her  child  and  see  that  they  were 
honorably  dealt  with,  and  cherished  and  protected 
and  loved  by  the  man  that  had  promised  these 
things,  and  so  be  made  happy  and  kept  so.  And 
because,  also — may  we  conjecture  this? — we  may 
hope  for  the  privilege  of  taking  up  our  cozy  Latin 
lessons  again,  that  used  to  be  so  pleasant,  and  brought 
us  so  near  together — so  near,  indeed,  that  often  our 
heads  touched,  just  as  heads  do  over  Italian  lessons; 
and  our  hands  met  in  casual  and  unintentional,  but 
still  most  delicious  and  thrilling  little  contacts  and 
momentary  clasps,  just  as  they  inevitably  do  over 
Italian  lessons.  Suppose  one  should  say  to  any 
young  wife:  "I  find  that  your  husband  is  poring  over 
the  Italian  poets  and  being  instructed  in  the  beautiful 
Italian  language  by  the  lovely  Cornelia  Robinson" 
— would  that  cozy  picture  fail  to  rise  before  her 
mind?  would  its  possibilities  fail  to  suggest  them 
selves  to  her?  would  there  be  a  pang  in  her  heart  and 
a  blush  on  her  face?  or,  on  the  contrary,  would  the 
remark  give  her  pleasure,  make  her  joyous  and  gay  ? 
Why,  one  needs  only  to  make  the  experiment — the 
result  will  not  be  uncertain. 

However,  we  learn — by  authority  of  deeply  rea 
soned  and  searching  conjecture — that  the  baby  bore 
the  journey  well,  and  that  that  was  why  the  young 
wife  was  happy.  That  accounts  for  two  per  cent. 
of  the  happiness,  but  it  was  not  right  to  imply  that 
it  accounted  for  the  other  ninety-eight  also. 

Peacock,  a  scholar,  poet,  and  friend  of  the  Shelleys, 
was  of  their  party  when  they  went  away.  He  used 

16 


DEFENSE  OF  HARRIET  SHELLEY 

to  laugh  at  the  Boinville  menagerie,  and  "was  not 
a  favorite."  One  of  the  Boinville  group,  writing  to 
Hogg,  said,  "The  Shelleys  have  made  an  addition 
to  their  party  in  the  person  of  a  cold  scholar,  who,  I 
think,  has  neither  taste  nor  feeling.  This,  Shelley 
will  perceive  sooner  or  later,  for  his  warm  nature 
craves  sympathy."  True,  and  Shelley  will  fight  his 
way  back  there  to  get  it — there  will  be  no  way  to 
head  him  off. 

Toward  the  end  of  November  it  was  necessary  for 
Shelley  to  pay  a  business  visit  to  London,  and  he 
conceived  the  project  of  leaving  Harriet  and  the  baby 
in  Edinburgh  with  Harriet's  sister,  Eliza  Westbrook, 
a  sensible,  practical  maiden  lady  about  thirty  years 
old,  who  had  spent  a  great  part  of  her  time  with  the 
family  since  the  marriage.  She  was  an  estimable 
woman,  and  Shelley  had  had  reason  to  like  her,  and 
did  like  her;  but  along  about  this  time  his  feeling 
toward  her  changed.  Part  of  Shelley's  plan,  as  he 
wrote  Hogg,  was  to  spend  his  London  evenings  with 
the  Newtons — members  of  the  Boinville  Hysterical 
Society.  But,  alas,  when  he  arrived  early  in  De 
cember,  that  pleasant  game  was  partially  blocked, 
for  Eliza  and  the  family  arrived  with  him.  We  are 
left  destitute  of  conjectures  at  this  point  by  the 
biographer,  and  it  is  my  duty  to  supply  one.  I 
chance  the  conjecture  that  it  was  Eliza  who  inter 
fered  with  that  game.  I  think  she  tried  to  do  what 
she  could  toward  modifying  the  Boinville  connec 
tion,  in  the  interest  of  her  young  sister's  peace  and 
honor. 

If  it  was  she  who  blocked  that  game,  she  was  not 


MARK    TWAIN 

strong  enough  to  block  the  next  one.  Before  the 
month  and  year  were  out — no  date  given,  let  us 
call  it  Christmas — Shelley  and  family  were  nested 
in  a  furnished  house  in  Windsor,  "at  no  great 
distance  from  the  Boinvilles" — these  decoys  still 
residing  at  Bracknell. 

What  we  need,  now,  is  a  misleading  conjecture. 
We  get  it  with  characteristic  promptness  and  de 
pravity  : 

But  Prince  Athanase  found  not  the  aged  Zonoras,  the  friend 
of  his  boyhood,  in  any  wanderings  to  Windsor.  Dr.  Lind  had 
died  a  year  since,  and  with  his  death  Windsor  must  have  lost, 
for  Shelley,  its  chief  attraction. 

Still,  not  to  mention  Shelley's  wife,  there  was 
Bracknell,  at  any  rate.  While  Bracknell  remains, 
all  solace  is  not  lost.  Shelley  is  represented  by  this 
biographer  as  doing  a  great  many  careless  things, 
but  to  my  mind  this  hiring  a  furnished  house  for 
three  months  in  order  to  be  with  a  man  who  has  been 
dead  a  year,  is  the  carelessest  of  them  all.  One  feels 
for  him — that  is  but  natural,  and  does  us  honor 
besides — yet  one  is  vexed,  for  all  that.  He  could 
have  written  and  asked  about  the  aged  Zonoras 
before  taking  the  house.  He  may  not  have  had  the 
address,  but  that  is  nothing — any  postman  would 
know  the  aged  Zonoras;  a  dead  postman  would  re 
member  a  name  like  that. 

And  yet,  why  throw  a  rag  like  this  to  us  ravening 
wolves?  Is  it  seriously  supposable  that  we  will  stop 
to  chew  it  and  let  our  prey  escape?  No,  we  are 
getting  to  expect  this  kind  of  device,  and  to  give  it 
merely  a  sniff  for  certainty's  sake  and  then  walk 

18 


DEFENSE  OP  HARRIET  SHELLEY 

around  it  and  leave  it  lying.  Shelley  was  not  after 
the  aged  Zonoras ;  he  was  pointed  for  Cornelia  and 
the  Italian  lessons,  for  his  warm  nature  was  craving 
sympathy. 

II 

THE  year  1813  is  just  ended  now,  and  we  step 
into  1814. 

To  recapitulate,  how  much  of  Cornelia's  society 
has  Shelley  had,  thus  far?  Portions  of  August  and 
September,  and  four  days  of  July.  That  is  to  say, 
he  has  had  opportunity  to  enjoy  it,  more  or  less, 
during  that  brief  period.  Did  he  want  some  more 
of  it?  We  must  fall  back  upon  history,  and  then 
go  to  conjecturing. 

In  the  early  part  of  the  year  1814,  Shelley  was  a  frequent 
visitor  at  Bracknell. 

''Frequent"  is  a  cautious  word,  in  this  author's 
mouth;  the  very  cautiousness  of  it,  the  vagueness  of 
it,  provokes  suspicion;  it  makes  one  suspect  that  this 
frequency  was  more  frequent  than  the  mere  common 
every-day  kinds  of  frequency  which  one  is  in  the 
habit  of  averaging  up  with  the  unassuming  term 
"frequent."  I  think  so  because  they  fixed  up  a 
bedroom  for  him  in  the  Boinville  house.  One 
doesn't  need  a  bedroom  if  one  is  only  going  to  run 
over  now  and  then  in  a  disconnected  way  to  respond 
like  a  tremulous  instrument  to  every  breath  of  pas 
sion  or  of  sentiment  and  rub  up  one's  Italian  poetry 
a  little. 

The  young  wife  was  not  invited,  perhaps.  If  she 

19 


MARK    TWAIN 

was,  she  most  certainly  did  not  come,  or  she  would 
have  straightened  the  room  up;  the  most  ignorant 
of  us  knows  that  a  wife  would  not  endure  a  room  in 
the  condition  in  which  Hogg  found  this  one  when 
he  occupied  it  one  night.  Shelley  was  away — why, 
nobody  can  divine.  Clothes  were  scattered  about, 
there  were  books  on  every  side:  "Wherever  a 
book  could  be  laid  was  an  open  book  turned  down 
on  its  face  to  keep  its  place."  It  seems  plain  that 
the  wife  was  not  invited.  No,  not  that;  I  think  she 
was  invited,  but  said  to  herself  that  she  could  not 
bear  to  go  there  and  see  another  young  woman  touch 
ing  heads  with  her  husband  over  an  Italian  book  and 
making  thrilling  hand-contacts  with  him  accidentally. 

As  remarked,  he  was  a  frequent  visitor  there, 
"where  he  found  an  easeful  resting-place  in  £he 
house~of  Mrs.  Boinville — the  white-haired  Maimuna 
— andtof  her  daughter,  Mrs.  Turner."  The  aged  Zo- 
noras  was"  deceased,  but  the  white-haired  Maimuna 
was  still ^ on  deck,  as  we  see.  "Three  charming 
ladies  entertained  the  mocker  (Hogg)  with  cups  of 
tea,  late  hours,  Wieland's  Agathon,  sighs  and  smiles, 
and  the  celestial  manna  of  refined  sentiment." 
"Such,"  says  Hogg,  "were  the  delights  of  Shel 
ley  's  paradise  in  Bracknell." 

The  white-haired  Maimuna  presently  writes  to 
Hogg: 

I  will  not  have  you  despise  home-spun  pleasures.  Shelley 
is  making  a  trial  of  them  with  us — 

A  trial  of  them.  It  may  be  called  that.  It  was 
March  u,  and  he  had  been  in  the  house  a  month. 
She  continues: 

20 


DEFENSE  OF  HARRIET  SHELLEY 

Shelley  "likes  them  so  well  that  he  is  resolved  to  leave  off 
rambling — 

But  he  has  already  left  it  oil.  He  has  been  there 
a  month. 

"And  begin  a  course  of  them  himself." 

But  he  has  already  begun  it.  He  has  been  at  it  a 
month.  He  likes  it  so  well  that  he  has  forgotten  all 
about  his  wife,  as  a  letter  of  his  reveals. 

Seriously,  I  think  his  mind  and  body  want  rest. 

Yet  he  has  been  resting  both  for  a  month,  with 
Italian,  and  tea,  and  manna  of  sentiment,  and  late 
hours,  and  every  restful  thing  a  young  husband 
could  need  for  the  refreshment  of  weary  limbs  and  a 
sore  conscience,  and  a  nagging  sense  of  shabbiness 
and  treachery. 

His  journeys  after  what  he  has  never  found  have  racked  his 
purse  and  his  tranquillity.  He  is  resolved  to  take  a  little  care 
of  the  former,  in  pity  to  the  latter,  which  I  applaud,  and  shall 
second  with  all  my  might. 

But  she  does  not  say  whether  the  young  wife,  a 
stranger  and  lonely  yonder,  wants  another  woman 
and  her  daughter  Cornelia  to  be  lavishing  so  much 
inflamed  interest  on  her  husband  or  not.  That 
young  wife  is  always  silent — we  are  never  allowed 
to  hear  from  her.  She  must  have  opinions  about 
such  things,  she  cannot  be  indifferent,  she  must  be 
approving  or  disapproving,  surely  she  would  speak 
if  she  were  allowed — even  to-day  and  from  her 
grave  she  would,  if  she  could,  I  think — but  we 
get  only  the  other  side,  they  keep  her  silent  always. 

21 


MARK    TWAIN 

He  has  deeply  interested  us.  In  the  course  of  your  intimacy 
he  must  have  made  you  feel  what  we  now  feel  for  him.  He  is 
seeking  a  house  close  to  us — 

Ah!  he  is  not  close  enough  yet,  it  seems — 

and  if  he  succeeds  we  shall  have  an  additional  motive  to  induce 
you  to  come  among  us  in  the  summer. 

The  reader  would  puzzle  a  long  time  and  not 
guess  the  biographer's  comment  upon  the  above 
letter.  It  is  this: 

These  sound  like  words  of  a  considerate  and  judicious  friend. 

That  is  what  he  thinks.  That  is,  it  is  what  he 
thinks  he  thinks.  No,  that  is  not  quite  it :  it  is  wjiat 
he  thinks  he  can  stupefy  a  .particularly  and  unspeak 
ably  dull  reader  into  thinking  it  is  what  he  thinks. 
He  makes  that  comment  with  the  knowledge  that 
Shelley  is  in  love  with  this  woman's  daughter,  and 
that  it  is  because  of  the  fascinations  of  these  two 
that  Shelley  has  deserted  his  wife — for  this  month, 
considering  all  the  circumstances,  and  his  new  pas 
sion,  and  his  employment  of  the  time,  amounted  to 
desertion;  that  is  its  rightful  name.  We  cannot 
know  how  the  wife  regar'ded  it  and  felt  about  it; 
but  if  she  could  have  read  the  letter  which  Shelley 
was  writing  to  Hogg  four  or  five  days  later,  we 
could  guess  her  thought  and  how  she  felt.  Hear 

him: 

•        •*....         ,. 

I  have  been  staying  with  Mrs.  Boinville  for  the  last  month; 
I  have  escaped,  in  the  society  of  all  that  philosophy  and  friend 
ship  combine,  from  the  dismaying  solitude  of  myself, 

22 


DEFENSE  OF  HARRIET  SHELLEY 

It  is  fair  to  conejcture  that  he  was  feeling  ashamed. 

They  have  revived  in  my  heart  the  expiring  flame  of  life. 
I  have  felt  myself  translated  to  a  paradise  which  has  nothing  of 
mortality  but  its  transitoriness ;  my  heart  sickens  at  the  view 
of  that  necessity  which  will  quickly  divide  me  from  the  delightful 
tranquillity  of  this  happy  home — for  it  has  become  my  home. 

Eliza  is  still  with  us — not  here! — but  will  be  with  me  when 
the  infinite  malice  of  destiny  forces  me  to  depart. 

Eliza  is  she  who  blocked  that  game — the  game 
in  London — the  one  where  we  were  purposing  to 
dine  every  night  with  one  of  the  "three  charming 
ladies"  who  fed  tea  and  manna  and  late  hours  to 
Hogg  at  Bracknell. 

Shelley  could  send  Eliza  away,  of  course;  could 
have  cleared  her  out  long  ago  if  so  minded,  just 
as  he  had  previously  done  with  a  predecessor  of 
hers  whom  he  had  first  worshiped  and  then  turned 
against;  but  perhaps  she  was  useful  there  as  a  thin 
excuse  for  staying  away  himself. 

I  am  now  but  little  inclined  to  contest  this  point.  I  cer 
tainly  hate  her  with  all  my  heart  and  soul.  .  .  . 

It  is  a  sight  which  awakens  an  inexpressible  sensation  of  dis 
gust  and  horror,  to  see  her  caress  my  poor  little  lanthe,  in  whom 
I  may  hereafter  find  the  consolation  of  sympathy.  I  sometimes 
feel  faint  with  the  fatigue  of  checking  the  overflowings  of  my  un 
bounded  abhorrence  for  this  miserable  wretch.  But  she  is  no 
more  than  a  blind  and  loathsome  worm,  that  cannot  see  to  sting. 

I  have  begun  to  learn  Italian  again.  .  .  .  Cornelia  assists 
me  in  this  language.  Did  I  not  once  tell  you  that  I  thought  her 
cold  and  reserved?  She  is  the  reverse  of  this,  as  she  is  the 
reverse  of  everything  bad.  She  inherits  all  the  divinity  of  her 
mother.  ...  I  have  sometimes  forgotten  that  I  am  not  an 
inmate  of  this  delightful  home — that  a  time  will  come  which 
will  cast  me  again  into  the  boundless  ocean  of  abhorred  society. 
3  23 


MARK    TWAIN 

I  have  written  nothing  but  one  stanza,  which  has  no  mean 
ing,  and  that  I  have  only  written  in  thought: 

Thy  dewy  looks  sink  in  my  breast; 

Thy  gentle  words  stir  poison  there; 
Thou  hast  disturbed  the  only  rest 
That  was  the  portion  of  despair. 
Subdued  to  duty's  hard  control, 

I  could  have  borne  my  wayward  lot: 
The  chains  that  bind  this  ruined  soul 

Had  cankered  then,  but  crushed  it  not. 

This  is  the  vision  of  a  delirious  and  distempered  dream, 
which  passes  away  at  the  cold  clear  light  of  morning.  Its  sur 
passing  excellence  and  exquisite  perfections  have  no  more  reality 
than  the  color  of  an  autumnal  sunset. 

Then  it  did  not  refer  to  his  wife.  That  is  plain; 
otherwise  he  would  have  said  so.  It  is  well  that  he 
explained  that  it  has  no  meaning,  for  if  he  had  not 
done  that,  the  previous  soft  references  to  Cornelia 
and  the  way  he  has  come  to  feel  about  her  now 
would  make  us  think  she  was  the  person  who  had 
inspired  it  while  teaching  him  how  to  read  the  warm 
and  ruddy  Italian  poets  during  a  month. 

The  biography  observes  that  portions  of  this  letter 
"read  like  the  tired  moaning  of  a  wounded  crea 
ture."  Guesses  at  the  nature  of  the  wound  are 
permissible;  we  will  hazard  one. 

Read  by  the  light  of  Shelley's  previous  history, 
his  letter  seems  to  be  the  cry  of  a  tortured  con 
science.  Until  this  time  it  was  a  conscience  that 
had  never  felt  a  pang  or  known  a  smirch.  It  was 
the  conscience  of  one  who,  until  this  time,  had  never 
done  a  dishonorable  thing,  or  an  ungenerous,  or 

24 


DEFENSE  OF  HARRIET  SHELLEY 

cruel,  or  treacherous  thing,  but  was  now  doing  all 
of  these,  and  was  keenly  aware  of  it.  Up  to  this 
time  Shelley  had  been  master  of  his  nature,  and  it 
was  a  nature  which  wras  as  beautiful  and  as  nearly 
perfect  as  any  merely  human  nature  may  be.  But 
he  was  drunk  now,  with  a  debasing  passion,  and 
was  not  himself.  There  is  nothing  in  his  previous 
history  that  is  in  character  with  the  Shelley  of  this 
letter.  He  had  done  boyish  things,  foolish  things, 
even  crazy  things,  but  never  a  thing  to  be  ashamed 
of.  He  had  done  things  which  one  might  laugh  at, 
but  the  privilege  of  laughing  was  limited  always  to 
the  thing  itself;  you  could  not  laugh  at  the  motive 
back  of  it — that  was  high,  that  was  noble.  His 
most  fantastic  and  quixotic  acts  had  a  purpose  back 
of  them  which  made  them  fine,  often  great,  and 
made  the  rising  laugh  seem  profanation  and  quenched 
it;  quenched  it,  and  changed  the  impulse  to  homage. 
Up  to  this  time  he  had  been  loyalty  itself,  where  his 
obligations  lay — treachery  was  new  to  him;  he  had 
never  done  an  ignoble  thing — baseness  was  new  to 
him;  he  had  never  done  an  unkind  thing — that 
also  was  new  to  him. 

This  was  the  author  of  that  letter,  this  was  the 
man  who  had  deserted  his  young  wife  and  was 
lamenting,  because  he  must  leave  another  woman's 
house  which  had  become  a  "home"  to  him,  and  go 
away.  Is  he  lamenting  mainly  because  he  must  go 
back  to  his  wife  and  child?  No,  the  lament  is 
mainly  for  what  he  is  to  leave  behind  him.  The 
physical  comforts  of  the  house?  No,  in  his  life  he 

had   never   attached   importance    to    such    things. 
3  25 


MARK    TWAIN 

Then  the  thing  which  he  grieves  to  leave  is  narrowed 
down  to  a  person — to  the  person  whose  "dewy 
looks"  had  sunk  into  his  breast,  and  whose  seducing 
words  had  ''stirred  poison  there.'* 

He  was  ashamed  of  himself,  his  conscience  was 
upbraiding  him.  He  was  the  slave  of  a  degrading 
love;  he  was  drunk  with  his  passion,  the  real  Shel 
ley  was  in  temporary  eclipse.  This  is  the  verdict 
which  his  previous  history  must  certainly  deliver 
upon  this  episode,  I  think. 

One  must  be  allowed  to  assist  himself  with  conjec 
tures  like  these  when  trying  to  find  his  way  through 
a  literary  swamp  which  has  so  many  misleading 
finger-boards  up  as  this  book  is  furnished  with. 

We  have  now  arrived  at  a  part  of  the  swamp 
where  the  difficulties  and  perplexities  are  going  to 
be  greater  than  any  we  have  yet  met  with — where, 
indeed,  the  finger-boards  are  multitudinous,  and  the 
most  of  them  pointing  diligently  in  the  wrong  direc 
tion.  We  are  to  be  told  by  the  biography  why 
Shelley  deserted  his  wife  and  child  and  took  up  with 
Cornelia  Turner  and  Italian.  It  was  not  on  account 
of  Cornelia's  sighs  and  sentimentalities  and  tea  and 
manna  and  late  hours  and  soft  and  sweet  and  indus 
trious  enticements;  no,  it  was  because  "his  happi 
ness  in  his  home  had  been  wounded  and  bruised 
almost  to  death." 

It  had  been  wounded  and  bruised  almost  to  death 
in  this  way: 

i  st.  Harriet  persuaded  him  to  set  up  a  carriage. 

2d.  After  the  intrusion  of  the  baby,  Harriet 
stopped  reading  aloud  and  studying. 

26 


DEFENSE  OF  HARRIET  SHELLEY 

3d.  Harriet's  walks  with  Hogg  "commonly  con 
ducted  us  to  some  fashionable  bonnet-shop." 

4th.  Harriet  hired  a  wet-nurse. 

5th.  When  an  operation  was  being  performed 
upon  the  baby,  "Harriet  stood  by,  narrowly  ob 
serving  all  that  was  done,  but,  to  the  astonishment 
of  the  operator,  betraying  not  the  smallest  sign  of 
emotion." 

6th.  Eliza  Westbrook,  sister-in-law,  was  still  of  the 
household. 

The  evidence  against  Harriet  Shelley  is  all  in; 
there  is  no  more.  Upon  these  six  counts  she  stands 
indicted  of  the  crime  of  driving  her  husband  into 
that  sty  at  Bracknell;  and  this  crime,  by  these  helps, 
the  biographical  prosecuting  attorney  has  set  himself 
the  task  of  proving  upon  her. 

Does  the  biographer  call  himself  the  attorney  for 
the  prosecution?  No,  only  to  himself,  privately; 
publicly  he  is  the  passionless,  disinterested,  impartial 
judge  on  the  bench.  He  holds  up  his  judicial  scales 
before  the  world,  that  all  may  see;  and  it  all  tries 
to  look  so  fair  that  a  blind  person  would  sometimes 
fail  to  see  him  slip  the  false  weights  in. 

Shelley's  happiness  in  his  home  had  been  wounded 
and  bruised  almost  to  death,  first,  because  Harriet 
had  persuaded  him  to  set  up  a  carriage.  I  cannot 
discover  that  any  evidence  is  offered  that  she  asked 
him  to  set  up  a  carriage.  Still,  if  she  did,  was  it  a 
heavy  offense  ?  Was  it  unique  ?  Other  young  wives 
had  committed  it  before,  others  have  committed  it 
since.  Shelley  had  dearly  loved  her  in  those  Lon 
don  days;  p'ossibly  he  set  up  the  carriage  gladly  to 

21 


MARK    TWAIN 

please  her;  affectionate  young  husbands  do  such 
things.  When  Shelley  ran  away  with  another  girl, 
by  and  by,  this  girl  persuaded  him  to  pour  the  price 
of  many  carriages  and  many  horses  down  the 
bottomless  well  of  her  father's  debts,  but  this  im 
partial  judge  finds  no  fault  with  that.  Once  she 
appeals  to  Shelley  to  raise  money — necessarily  by 
borrowing,  there  was  no  other  way — to  pay  her 
father's  debts  with  at  a  time  when  Shelley  was  in 
danger  of  being  arrested  and  imprisoned  for  his  own 
debts;  yet  the  good  judge  finds  no  fault  with  her 
even  for  this. 

First  and  last,  Shelley  emptied  into  that  rapacious 
mendicant's  lap  a  sum  which  cost  him — for  he 
borrowed  it  at  ruinous  rates — from  eighty  to  one 
hundred  thousand  dollars.  But  it  was  Mary  God 
win's  papa,  the  supplications  were  often  sent  through 
Mary,  the  good  judge  is  Mary's  strenuous  friend, 
so  Mary  gets  no  censures.  On  the  Continent  Mary 
rode  in  her  private  carriage,  built,  as  Shelley  boasts, 
"by  one  of  the  best  makers  in  Bond  Street,"  yet  the 
good  judge  makes  not  even  a  passing  comment  on  this 
iniquity.  Let  us  throw  out  Count  No.  i  against 
Harriet  Shelley  as  being  far-fetched  and  frivolous. 

Shelley's  happiness  in  his  home  had  been  wounded 
and  bruised  almost  to  death,  secondly,  because 
Harriet's  studies  "had  dwindled  away  to  nothing, 
Bysshe  had  ceased  to  express  any  interest  in  them." 
At  what  time  was  this?  It  was  when  Harriet  "had 
fully  recovered  from  the  fatigue  of  her  first  effort  of 
maternity,  .  .  .  and  was  now  in  full  force,  vigor, 
and  effect."  Very  well,  the  baby  was  born  two  days 

28 


DEFENSE  OF  HARRIET  SHELLEY 

before  the  close  of  June.  It  took  the  mother  a  month 
to  get  back  her  full  force,  vigor,  and  effect;  this 
brings  us  to  July  27th  and  the  deadly  Cornelia.  If 
a  wife  of  eighteen  is  studying  with  her  husband  and 
he  gets  smitten  with  another  woman,  isn't  he  likely 
to  lose  interest  in  his  wife's  studies  for  that  reason, 
and  is  not  his  wife's  interest  in  her  studies  likely  to 
languish  for  the  same  reason?  Would  not  the  mere 
sight  of  those  books  of  hers  sharpen  the  pain  that 
is  in  her  heart?  This  sudden  breaking  down  of  a 
mutual  intellectual  interest  of  two  years'  standing  is 
coincident  with  Shelley's  re-encounter  with  Cornelia; 
and  we  are  allowed  to  gather  from  that  time  forth 
for  nearly  two  months  he  did  all  his  studying  in 
that  person's  society.  We  feel  at  liberty  to  rule 
out  Count  No.  2  from  the  indictment  against 
Harriet. 

Shelley's  happiness  in  his  home  had  been  wounded 
and  bruised  almost  to  death,  thirdly,  because  Har 
riet's  walks  with  Hogg  commonly  led  to  some  fashion 
able  bonnet-shop.  I  offer  no  palliation;  I  only  ask 
why  the  dispassionate,  impartial  judge  did  not  offer 
one  himself — merely,  I  mean,  to  offset  his  leniency 
in  a  similar  case  or  two  where  the  girl  who  ran  away 
with  Harriet's  husband  was  the  shopper.  There  are 
several  occasions  where  she  interested  herself  with 
shopping— among  them  being  walks  which  ended  at 
the  bonnet-shop — yet  in  none  of  these  cases  does  she 
get  a  word  of  blame  from  the  good  judge,  while  in 
one  of  them  he  covers  the  deed  with  a  justifying 
remark,  she  doing  the  shopping  that  time  to  find 
easement  for  her  mind,  her  child  having  died. 

29 


MARK    TWAIN 

Shelley's  happiness  in  his  home  had  been  wounded 
and  bruised  almost  to  death,  fourthly,  by  the  intro 
duction  there  of  a  wet-nurse.  The  wet-nurse  was 
introduced  at  the  time  of  the  Edinburgh  sojourn, 
immediately  after  Shelley  had  been  enjoying  the  two 
months  of  study  with  Cornelia  which  broke  up  his 
wife's  studios  and  destroyed  his  personal  interest  in 
them.  Why,  by  this  time,  nothing  that  Shelley's 
wife  could  do  would  have  been  satisfactory  to  him, 
for  he  was  in  love  with  another  woman,  and  was 
never  going  to  be  contented  again  until  he  got  back 
to  her.  If  he  had  been  still  in  love  with  his  wife 
it  is  not  easily  conceivable  that  he  would  care  much 
who  nursed  the  baby,  provided  the  baby  was  well 
nursed.  Harriet's  jealousy  was  assuredly  voicing 
itself  now,  Shelley's  conscience  was  assuredly  nagging 
him,  pestering  him,  persecuting  him.  Shelley  needed 
excuses  for  his  altered  attitude  toward  his  wife; 
Providence  pitied  him  and  sent  the  wet-nurse.  If 
Providence  had  sent  him  a  cotton  doughnut  it  would 
have  answered  just  as  well;  all  he  wanted  was  some 
thing  to  find  fault  with. 

Shelley's  happiness  in  his  home  had  been  wounded 
and  bruised  almost  to  death,  fifthly,  because  Harriet 
narrowly  watched  a  surgical  operation  which  was 
being  performed  upon  her  child,  and,  "to  the  aston 
ishment  of  the  operator,"  who  was  watching  Harriet 
instead  of  attending  to  his  operation,  she  betrayed 
"not  the  smallest  sign  of  emotion."  The  author  of 
this  biography  was  not  ashamed  to  set  down  that 
exultant  slander.  He  was  apparently  not  aware  that 
it  was  a  small  business  to  bring  into  his  court  a  wit- 

3° 


DEFENSE  OF  HARRIET  SHELLEY 

ness  whose  name  he  does  not  know,  and  whose 
character  and  veracity  there  is  none  to  vouch  for, 
and  allow  him  to  strike  this  blow  at  the  mother- 
heart  of  this  friendless  girl.  The  biographer  says, 
"We  may  not  infer  from  this  that  Harriet  did  not 
feel" — why  put  it  in,  then? — "but  we  learn  that 
those  about  her  could  believe  her  to  be  hard  and 
insensible."  Who  were  those  who  were  about  her? 
Her  husband?  He  hated  her  now,  because  he  was 
in  love  elsewhere.  Her  sister?  Of  course  that  is  not 
charged.  Peacock?  Peacock  does  not  testify.  The 
wet-nurse  ?  She  does  not  testify.  If  any  others  were 
there  we  have  no  mention  of  them.  "Those  about 
her  "  are  reduced  to  one  person — her  husband.  Who 
reports  the  circumstance?  It  is  Hogg.  Perhaps  he 
was  there — we  do  not  know.  But  if  he  was,  he 
still  got  his  information  at  second  hand,  as  it  was 
the  operator  who  noticed  Harriet's  lack  of  emotion, 
not  himself.  Hogg  is  not  given  to  saying  kind  things 
when  Harriet  is  his  subject.  He  may  have  said  them 
the  time  that  he  tried  to  tempt  her  to  soil  her  honor, 
but  after  that  he  mentions  her  usually  with  a  sneer. 
"Among  those  who  were  about  her"  was  one  witness 
well  equipped  to  silence  all  tongues,  abolish  all 
doubts,  set  our  minds  at  rest;  one  witness,  not 
called,  and  not  callable,  whose  evidence,  if  we  could 
but  get  it,  would  outweigh  the  oaths  of  whole  bat 
talions  of  hostile  Hoggs  and  nameless  surgeons — the 
baby.  I  wish  we  had  the  baby's  testimony;  and  yet 
if  we  had  it  it  would  not  do  us  any  good — a  furtive 
conjecture,  a  sly  insinuation,  a  pious  "if"  or  two, 
would  be  smuggled  in,  here  and  there,  with  a  solemn 


MARK    TWAIN 

air  of  judicial  investigation,  and  its  positiveness 
would  wilt  into  dubiety. 

The  biographer  says  of  Harriet,  "If  words  of 
tender  affection  and  motherly  pride  proved  the 
reality  of  love,  then  undoubtedly  she  loved  her  first 
born  child."  That  is,  if  mere  empty  words  can 
prove  it,  it  stands  proved — and  in  this  way,  with 
out  committing  himself,  he  gives  the  reader  a  chance 
to  infer  that  there  isn't  any  extant  evidence  but 
words,  and  that  he  doesn't  take  much  stock  in  them. 
How  seldom  he  shows  his  hand !  He  is  always  lurk 
ing  behind  a  non-committal  "if"  or  something  of 
that  kind;  always  gliding  and  dodging  around,  dis 
tributing  colorless  poison  here  and  there  and  every 
where,  but  always  leaving  himself  in  a  position  to 
say  that  his  language  will  be  found  innocuous  if 
taken  to  pieces  and  examined.  He  clearly  exhibits 
a  steady  and  never-relaxing  purpose  to  make  Harriet 
the  scapegoat  for  her  husband's  first  great  sin — but 
it  is  in  the  general  view  that  this  is  revealed,  not  in 
the  details.  His  insidious  literature  is  like  blue 
water;  you  know  what  it  is  that  makes  it  blue,  but 
you  cannot  produce  and  verify  any  detail  of  the 
cloud  of  microscopic  dust  in  it  that  does  it.  Your 
adversary  can  dip  up  a  glassful  and  show  you  that 
it  is  pure  white  and  you  cannot  deny  it ;  and  he  can 
dip  the  lake  dry,  glass  by  glass,  and  show  that 
every  glassful  is  white,  and  prove  it  to  any  one's 
eye — and  yet  that  lake  was  blue  and  you  can  swear 
it.  This  book  is  blue — with  slander  in  solution. 

Let  the  reader  examine,  for  example,  the  para 
graph  of  comment  which  immediately  follows  the 


DEFENSE  OF  HARRIET  SHELLEY 

letter  containing  Shelley's  self -exposure  which  we 
have  been  considering.  This  is  it.  One  should  in 
spect  the  individual  sentences  as  they  go  by,  then 
pass  them  in  procession  and  review  the  cake-walk  as 
a  whole : 

Shelley's  happiness  in  his  home,  as  is  evident  from  this 
pathetic  letter,  had  been  fatally  stricken;  it  is  evident,  also,  that 
he  knew  where  duty  lay;  he  felt  that  his  part  was  to  take  up  his 
burden,  silently  and  sorrowfully,  and  to  bear  it  henceforth  with 
the  quietness  of  despair.  But  we  can  perceive  that  he  scarcely 
possessed  the  strength  and  fortitude  needful  for  success  in  such 
an  attempt.  And  clearly  Shelley  himself  was  aware  how  perilous 
it  was  to  accept  that  respite  of  blissful  ease  which  he  enjoyed  in 
the  Boinville  household:  for  gentle  voices  and  dewy  looks  and 
words  of  sympathy  could  not  fail  to  remind  him  of  an  ideal  of 
tranquillity  or  of  joy  which  could  never  be  his,  and  which  he 
must  henceforth  sternly  exclude  from  his  imagination. 

That  paragraph  commits  the  author  in  no  way. 
Taken  sentence  by  sentence  it  asserts  nothing  against 
anybody  or  in  favor  of  anybody,  pleads  for  nobody, 
accuses  nobody.  Taken  detail  by  detail,  it  is  as 
innocent  as  moonshine.  And  yet,  taken  as  a  whole, 
it  is  a  design  against  the  reader;  its  intent  is  to  re 
move  the  feeling  which  the  letter  must  leave  with 
him  if  let  alone,  and  put  a  different  one  in  its  place 
—to  remove  a  feeling  justified  by  the  letter  and 
substitute  one  not  justified  by  it.  The  letter  itself 
gives  you  no  uncertain  picture — no  lecturer  is 
needed  to  stand  by  with  a  stick  and  point  out  its 
details  and  let  on  to  explain  what  they  mean.  The 
picture  is  the  very  clear  and  remorsefully  faithful 
picture  of  a  fallen  and  fettered  angel  who  is  ashamed 
of  himself;  an  angel  who  beats  his  soiled  wings  and 

33 


MARK    TWAIN 

cries,  who  complains  to  the  woman  who  enticed  him 
that  he  could  have  borne  his  wayward  lot,  he  could 
have  stood  by  his  duty  if  it  had  not  been  for  her 
beguilements;  an  angel  who  rails  at  the  "boundless 
ocean  of  abhorred  society,"  and  rages  at  his  poor 
judicious  sister-in-law.  If  there  is  any  dignity  about 
this  spectacle  it  will  escape  most  people. 

Yet  when  the  paragraph  of  comment  is  taken  as  a 
whole,  the  picture  is  full  of  dignity  and  pathos;  we 
have  before  us  a  blameless  and  noble  spirit  stricken 
to  the  earth  by  malign  powers,  but  not  conquered; 
tempted,  but  grandly  putting  the  temptation  away; 
enmeshed  by  subtle  coils,  but  sternly  resolved  to 
rend  them  and  march  forth  victorious,  at  any  peril 
of  life  or  limb.  Curtain — slow  music. 

Was  it  the  purpose  of  the  paragraph  to  take  the 
bad  taste  of  Shelley's  letter  out  of  the  reader's 
mouth?  If  that  was  not  it,  good  ink  was  wasted; 
without  that,  it  has  no  relevancy — the  multiplica 
tion  table  would  have  padded  the  space  as  rationally. 

We  have  inspected  the  six  reasons  which  we  are 
asked  to  believe  drove  a  man  of  conspicuous  pa 
tience,  honor,  justice,  fairness,  kindliness,  and  iron 
firmness,  resolution,  and  steadfastness,  from  the 
wife  whom  he  loved  and  who  loved  him,  to  a  refuge 
in  the  mephitic  paradise  of  Bracknell.  These  are 
six  infinitely  little  reasons;  but  there  were  six  colos 
sal  ones,  and  these  the  counsel  for  the  destruction  of 
Harriet  Shelley  persists  in  not  considering  very 
important. 

Moreover,  the  colossal  six  preceded  the  little  six, 
and  had  done  the  mischief  before  they  were  born. 

34 


DEFENSE  OF  HARRIET  SHELLEY 

Let  us  double-column  the  twelve;  then  we  shall  see 
at  a  glance  that  each  little  reason  is  in  turn  answered 
by  a  retorting  reason  of  a  size  to  overshadow  it  and 
make  it  insignificant: 

1.  Harriet  sets  up  carriage.  i.  CORNELIA  TURNER. 

2.  Harriet  stops  studying.  2.  CORNELIA  TURNER. 

3.  Harriet  goes  to  bonnet-shop.  3.  CORNELIA  TURNER. 

4.  Harriet  takes  a  wet-nurse.  4.  CORNELIA  TURNER. 

5.  Harriet  has  too  much  nerve.  5.  CORNELIA  TURNER. 

6.  Detested  sister-in-law.  6.  CORNELIA  TURNER. 

As  soon  as  we  comprehend  that  Cornelia  Turner 
and  the  Italian  lessons  happened  before  the  little  six 
had  been  discovered  to  be  grievances,  we  understand 
why  Shelley's  happiness  in  his  home  had  been 
wounded  and  bruised  almost  to  death,  and  no  one 
can  persuade  us  into  laying  it  on  Harriet.  Shelley 
and  Cornelia  are  the  responsible  persons,  and  we 
cannot  in  honor  and  decency  allow  the  cruelties 
which  they  practised  upon  the  unoffending  wife  to 
be  pushed  aside  in  order  to  give  us  a  chance  to  waste 
time  and  tears  over  six  sentimental  justifications  of 
an  offense  which  the  six  can't  justify,  nor  even  re 
spectably  assist  in  justifying. 

Six?  There  were  seven;  but  in  charity  to  the 
biographer  the  seventh  ought  not  to  be  exposed. 
Still,  he  hung  it  out  himself,  and  not  only  hung  it 
out,  but  thought  it  was  a  good  point  in  Shelley's 
favor.  For  two  years  Shelley  found  sympathy  and 
intellectual  food  and  all  that  at  home;  there  was 
enough  for  spiritual  and  mental  support,  but  not 
enough  for  luxury;  and  so,  at  the  end  of  the  con 
tented  two  years,  this  latter  detail  justifies  him  in 

35 


MARK    TWAIN 

going  bag  and  baggage  over  to  Cornelia  Turner  and 
supplying  the  rest  of  his  need  in  the  way  of  surplus 
sympathy  and  intellectual  pie  unlawfully.  By  the 
same  reasoning  a  man  in  merely  comfortable  circum 
stances  may  rob  a  bank  without  sin. 

Ill 

IT  is  1814,  it  is  the  i6th  of  March,  Shelley  had 
written  his  letter,  he  has  been  in  the  Boinville 
paradise  a  month,  his  deserted  wife  is  in  her  hus- 
bandless  home.  Mischief  has  been  wrought.  It  is 
the  biographer  who  concedes  this.  We  greatly  need 
some  light  on  Harriet's  side  of  the  case  now;  we 
need  to  know  how  she  enjoyed  the  month,  but  there 
is  no  way  to  inform  ourselves;  there  seems  to  be  a 
strange  absence  of  documents  and  letters  and  diaries 
on  that  side.  Shelley  kept  a  diary,  the  approaching 
Mary  Godwin  kept  a  diary,  her  father  kept  one,  her 
half-sister  by  marriage,  adoption,  and  the  dispensa 
tion  of  God  kept  one,  and  the  entire  tribe  and  all  its 
friends  wrote  and  received  letters,  and  the  letters 
were  kept  and  are  producible  when  this  biography 
needs  them;  but  there  are  only  three  or  four  scraps 
of  Harriet's  writing,  and  no  diary.  Harriet  wrote 
plenty  of  letters  to  her  husband — nobody  knows 
where  they  are,  I  suppose;  she  wrote  plenty  of 
letters  to  other  people — apparently  they  have  dis 
appeared,  too.  Peacock  says  she  wrote  good  letters, 
but  apparently  interested  people  had  sagacity  enough 
to  mislay  them  in  time.  After  all  her  industry  she 
went  down  into  her  grave  and  lies  silent  there — 

36 


DEFENSE  OF  HARRIET  SHELLEY 

silent,  when  she  has  so  much  need  to  speak.  We 
can  only  wonder  at  this  mystery,  not  account  for  it. 

No,  there  is  no  way  of  finding  out  what  Harriet's 
state  of  feeling  was  during  the  month  that  Shelley 
was  disporting  himself  in  the  Bracknell  paradise. 
We  have  to  fall  back  upon  conjecture,  as  our  fabu 
list  does  when  he  has  nothing  more  substantial  to 
work  with.  Then  we  easily  conjecture  that  as  the 
days  dragged  by  Harriet's  heart  grew  heavier  and 
heavier  under  its  two  burdens — shame  and  resent 
ment;  the  shame  of  being  pointed  at  and  gossiped 
about  as  a  deserted  wife,  and  resentment  against  the 
woman  who  had  beguiled  her  husband  from  her  and 
now  kept  him  in  a  disreputable  captivity.  Deserted 
wives — deserted  whether  for  cause  or  without  cause 
—find  small  charity  among  the  virtuous  and  the  dis 
creet.  We  conjecture  that  one  after  another  the 
neighbors  ceased  to  call;  that  one  after  another 
they  got  to  being  "engaged"  when  Harriet  called; 
that  finally  they  one  after  the  other  cut  her  dead  on 
the  street;  that  after  that  she  stayed  in  the  house 
daytimes,  and  brooded  over  her  sorrows,  and  night 
times  did  the  same,  there  being  nothing  else  to  do 
with  the  heavy  hours  and  the  silence  and  solitude 
and  the  dreary  intervals  which  sleep  should  have 
charitably  bridged,  but  didn't. 

Yes,  mischief  had  been  wrought.  The  biographer 
arrives  at  this  conclusion,  and  it  is  a  most  just  one. 
Then,  just  as  you  begin  to  half  hope  he  is  going  to 
discover  the  cause  of  it  and  launch  hot  bolts  of 
wrath  at  the  guilty  manufacturers  of  it,  you  have  to 
turn  away  disappointed.  You  are  disappointed,  and 

37 


MARK    TWAIN 

you   sigh.     This  is  what   he   says — the  italics   are 
mine: 

However  the  mischief  may  have  been  wrought — and  at  this 
day  no  one  can  wish  to  heap  blame  on  any  buried  head — 

So  it  is  poor  Harriet,  after  all.  Stern  justice  must 
take  its  course — justice  tempered  with  delicacy,  jus 
tice  tempered  with  compa?sion,  justice  that  pities 
a  forlorn  dead  girl  and  refuses  to  strike  her.  Ex 
cept  in  the  back.  Will  not  be  ignoble  and  say 
the  harsh  thing,  but  only  insinuate  it.  Stern  justice 
knows  about  the  carriage  and  the  wet-nurse  and  the 
bonnet-shop  and  the  other  dark  things  that  caused 
this  sad  mischief,  and  may  not,  must  not  blink  them; 
so  it  delivers  judgment  where  judgment  belongs,  but 
softens  the  blow  by  not  seeming  to  deliver  judgment 
at  all.  To  resume — the  italics  are  mine: 

However  the  mischief  may  have  been  wrought — and  at  this 
day  no  one  can  wish  to  heap  blame  on  any  buried  head — it  is 
certain  that  some  cause  or  causes  of  deep  division  between  Shelley  and 
his  wife  were  in  operation  during  the  early  part  of  the  year  1814. 

This  shows  penetration.  No  deduction  could  be 
more  accurate  than  this.  There  were  indeed  some 
causes  of  deep  division.  But  next  comes  another 
disappointing  sentence : 

To  guess  at  the  precise  nature  of  these  causes,  in  the  absence 
of  definite  statement,  were  useless. 

Why,  he  has  already  been  guessing  at  them  for 
several  pages,  and  we  have  been  trying  to  outguess 
him,  and  now  all  of  a  sudden  he  is  tired  of  it  and 
won't  play  any  more.  It  is  not  quite  fair  to  us. 

38 


DEFENSE  OF  HARRIET  SHELLEY 

However,  he  will  get  over  this  by  and  by,  when 
Shelley  commits  his  next  indiscretion  and  has  to  be 
guessed  out  of  it  at  Harriet's  expense. 

"We  may  rest  content  with  Shelley's  own  words" 
—in  a  Chancery  paper  drawn  up  by  him  three  years 
later/  They  were  these:  "Delicacy  forbids  me  to 
say  more  than  that  we  were  disunited  by  incurable 
dissensions." 

As  for  me,  I  do  not  quite  see  why  we  should  rest 
content  with  anything  of  the  sort.  It  is  not  a  very 
definite  statement.  It  does  not  necessarily  mean 
anything  more  than  that  he  did  not  wish  to  go  into 
the  tedious  details  of  those  family  quarrels.  Deli 
cacy  could  quite  properly  excuse  him  from  saying, 
"I  was  in  love  with  Cornelia  all  that  time;  my  wife 
kept  crying  and  worrying  about  it  and  upbraiding 
me  and  begging  me  to  cut  myself  free  from  a  connec 
tion  which  was  wronging  her  and  disgracing  us 
both;  and  I  being  stung  by  these  reproaches  re 
torted  with  fierce  and  bitter  speeches — for  it  is  my 
nature  to  do  that  when  I  am  stirred,  especially  if 
the  target  of  them  is  a  person  whom  I  had  greatly 
loved  and  respected  before,  as  witness  my  various 
attitudes  towrard  Miss  Kitchener,  the  Gisbornes,  Har 
riet's  sister,  and  others — and  finally  I  did  not  improve 
this  state  of  things  when  I  deserted  my  wife  and  spent  a 
whole  month  with  the  woman  who  had  infatuated  me." 

No,  he  could  not  go  into  those  details,  and  we 
excuse  him;  but,  nevertheless,  we  do  not  rest  con 
tent  with  this  bland  proposition  to  puff  away  that 
whole  long  disreputable  episode  with  a  single  mean 
ingless  remark  of  Shelley's. 
4  39 


MARK    TWAIN 

We  do  admit  that  "it  is  certain  that  some  cause 
or  causes  of  deep  division  were  in  operation."  We 
would  admit  it  just  the  same  if  the  grammar  of  the 
statement  were  as  straight  as  a  string,  for  we  drift 
into  pretty  indifferent  grammar  ourselves  when  we  are 
absorbed  in  historical  work;  but  we  have  to  decline 
to  admit  that  we  cannot  guess  those  cause  or  causes. 

But  guessing  is  not  really  necessary.  There  is 
evidence  attainable — evidence  from  the  batch  dis 
credited  by  the  biographer  and  set  out  at  the  back 
door  in  his  appendix-basket;  and  yet  a  court  of  law 
would  think  twice  before  throwing  it  out,  whereas  it 
would  be  a  hardy  person  who  would  venture  to  offer 
in  such  a  place  a  good  part  of  the  material  which  is 
placed  before  the  readers  of  this  book  as  "evi 
dence,"  and  so  treated  by  this  daring  biographer. 
Among  some  letters  (in  the  appendix-basket)  from 
Mrs.  Godwin,  detailing  the  Godwinian  share  in  the 
Shelleyan  events  of  1814,  she  tells  how  Harriet 
Shelley  came  to  her  and  her  husband,  agitated  and 
weeping,  to  implore  them  to  forbid  Shelley  the  house, 
and  prevent  his  seeing  Mary  Godwin. 

She  related  that  last  November  he  had  fallen  in  love  with 
Mrs.  Turner  and  paid  her  such  marked  attentions  Mr.  Turner, 
the  husband,  had  carried  off  his  wife  to  Devonshire. 

The  biographer  finds  a  technical  fault  in  this: 
"the  Shelley s  were  in  Edinburgh  in  November." 
What  of  that?  The  woman  is  recalling  a  conversa 
tion  which  is  more  than  two  months  old;  besides, 
she  was  probably  more  intent  upon  the  central  and 
important  fact  of  it  than  upon  its  unimportant  date. 

40 


DEFENSE  OP  HARRIET  SHELLEY 

Harriet's  quoted  statement  has  some  sense  in  it; 
for  that  reason,  if  for  no  other,  it  ought  to  have  been 
put  in  the  body  of  the  book.  Still,  that  would  not 
have  answered;  even  the  biographer's  enemy  could 
not  be  cruel  enough  to  ask  him  to  let  this  real 
grievance,  this  compact  and  substantial  and  pictu 
resque  figure,  this  rawhead-and-bloody-bones,  come 
striding  in  there  among  those  pale  shams,  those 
rickety  specters  labeled  WET-NURSE,  BONNET-SHOP, 
and  so  on — no,  the  father  of  all  malice  could  not  ask 
the  biographer  to  expose  his  pathetic  goblins  to  a 
competition  like  that. 

The  fabulist  finds  fault  with  the  statement  because 
it  has  a  technical  error  in  it;  and  he  does  this  at  the 
moment  that  he  is  furnishing  us  an  error  himself,  and 
of  a  graver  sort.  He  says: 

If  Turner  carried  off  his  wife  to  Devonshire  he  brought  her 
back,  and  Shelley  was  staying  with  her  and  her  mother  on  terms 
of  cordial  intimacy  in  March,  1814. 

We  accept  the  ' 'cordial  intimacy  " — it  was  the  very 
thing  Harriet  was  complaining  of — but  there  is 
nothing  to  show  that  it  was  Turner  who  brought  his 
wife  back.  The  statement  is  thrown  in  as  if  it  were 
not  only  true,  but  was  proof  that  Turner  was  not 
uneasy.  Turner's  movements  are  proof  of  nothing. 
Nothing  but  a  statement  from  Turner's  mouth  would 
have  any  value  here,  and  he  made  none. 

Six  days  after  writing  his  letter  Shelley  and  his 
wife  were  together  again  for  a  moment — to  get  re 
married  according  to  the  rites  of  the  English  Church. 

Within  three  weeks  the  new  husband  and  wife 
4  41 


MARK    TWAIN 

were  apart  again,  and  the  former  was  back  in  his 
odorous  paradise.  This  time  it  is  the  wife  who  does 
the  deserting.  She  finds  Cornelia  too  strong  for  her, 
probably.  At  any  rate,  she  goes  away  with  her 
baby  and  sister,  and  we  have  a  playful  fling  at  her 
from  good  Mrs.  Boinville,  the  "mysterious  spinner 
Maimuna";  she  whose  "face  was  as  a  damsel's  face, 
and  yet  her  hair  was  gray";  she  of  whom  the  biog 
rapher  has  said,  "Shelley  was  indeed  caught  in  an 
almost  invisible  thread  spun  around  him,  but  uncon 
sciously,  by  this  subtle  and  benignant  enchantress." 
The  subtle  and  benignant  enchantress  writes  to 
Hogg,  April  18:  "Shelley  is  again  a  widower;  his 
beauteous  half  went  to  town  on  Thursday." 

Then  Shelley  writes  a  poem — a  chant  of  grief  over 
the  hard  fate  which  obliges  him  now  to  leave  his 
paradise  and  take  up  with  his  wife  again.  It  seems 
to  intimate  that  the  paradise  is  cooling  toward  him ; 
that  he  is  warned  off  by  acclamation;  that  he  must 
not  even  venture  to  tempt  with  one  last  tear  his 
friend  Cornelia's  ungentle  mood,  for  her  eye  is 
glazed  and  cold  and  dares  not  entreat  her  lover  to 
stay: 

Exhibit  E 

Pause  not!  the  time  is  past!    Every  voice  cries  "  Away ! " 
Tempt  not  with  one  last  tear  thy  friend's  ungentle  mood; 

Thy  lover's  eye,  so  glazed  and  cold,  dares  not  entreat  thy  stay: 
Duty  and  dereliction  guide  thee  back  to  solitude. 

Back  to  the  solitude  of  his  now  empty  home, 

that  is! 

Away!  away!  to  thy  sad  and  silent  home; 
Pour  bitter  tears  on  its  desolated  hearth. 


42 


DEFENSE  OF  HARRIET  SHELLEY 

But  he  will  have  rest  in  the  grave  by  and  by. 
Until  that  time  comes,  the  charms  of  Bracknell  will 
remain  in  his  memory,  along  with  Mrs.  Boinville's 
voice  and  Cornelia  Turner's  smile: 

Thou  in  the  grave  shalt  rest — yet,  till  the  phantoms  flee 
Which  that  house  and  hearth  and  garden  made  dear  to  thce 

erewhile, 

Thy  remembrance  and  repentance  and  deep  musings  are  not  free 
From  the  music  of  two  voices  and  the  light  of  one  sweet 
smile. 

We  cannot  wonder  that  Harriet  could  not  stand  it. 
Any  of  us  would  have  left.  We  would  not  even  stay 
with  a  cat  that  was  in  this  condition.  Even  the 
Boinvilles  could  not  endure  it;  and  so,  as  we  have 
seen,  they  gave  this  one  notice. 

Early  in  May,  Shelley  was  in  London.  He  did  not  yet 
despair  of  reconciliation  with  Harriet,  nor  had  he  ceased  to 
love  her. 

Shelley's  poems  are  a  good  deal  of  trouble  to  his 
biographer.  They  are  constantly  inserted  as  "evi 
dence,"  and  they  make  much  confusion.  As  soon 
as  one  of  them  has  proved  one  thing,  another  one 
follows  and  proves  quite  a  different  thing.  The 
poem  just  quoted  shows  that  he  was  in  love  with 
Cornelia,  but  a  month  later  he  is  in  love  with  Harriet 
again,  and  there  is  a  poem  to  prove  it. 

In  this  piteous  appeal  Shelley  declares  that  he  has  now  no 
grief  but  one — the  grief  of  having  known  and  lost  his  wife's  love. 

Exhibit  F 

Thy  look  of  love  has  power  to  calm 
The  stormiest  passion  of  my  soul. 

43 


MARK     TWAIN 

But  without  doubt  she  had  been  reserving  her 
looks  of  love  a  good  part  of  the  time  for  ten  months, 
now — ever  since  he  began  to  lavish  his  own  on  Cor 
nelia  Turner  at  the  end  of  the  previous  July.  He 
does  really  seem  to  have  already  forgotten  Cornelia's 
merits  in  one  brief  month,  for  he  eulogizes  Harriet 
in  a  way  which  rules  all  competition  out: 

Thou  only  virtuous,  gentle,  kind, 
Amid  a  world  of  hate. 

He  complains  of  her  hardness,  and  begs  her  to 
make  the  concession  of  a  "slight  endurance" — of 
his  waywardness,  perhaps — for  the  sake  of  "a 
fellow-being's  lasting  weal."  But  the  main  force  of 
his  appeal  is  in  his  closing  stanza,  and  is  strongly 

worded : 

O  trust  for  once  no  erring  guide! 

Bid  the  remorseless  feeling  flee; 
'Tis  malice,  'tis  revenge,  'tis  pride, 

Tis  anything  but  thee; 
O  deign  a  nobler  pride  to  prove, 
And  pity  if  thou  canst  not  love. 

This  is  in  May — apparently  toward  the  end  of  it. 
Harriet  and  Shelley  were  corresponding  all  the  time. 
Harriet  got  the  poem — a  copy  exists  in  her  own 
handwriting;  she  being  the  only  gentle  and  kind 
person  amid  a  world  of  hate,  according  to  Shelley's 
own  testimony  in  the  poem,  we  are  permitted  to 
think  that  the  daily  letters  would  presently  have 
melted  that  kind  and  gentle  heart  and  brought  about 
the  reconciliation,  if  there  had  been  time — but  there 
wasn't;  for  in  a  very  few  days  —  in  fact,  before  the 
8th  of  June — Shelley  was  in  love  with  another  woman, 

44 


DEFENSE  OF  HARRIET  SHELLEY 

And  so — perhaps  while  Harriet  was  walking  the 

floor  nights,  trying  to  get  her  poem  by  heart — her 

husband  was  doing  a  fresh  one — for  the  other  girl 

—Mary    Wollstonecraft    Godwin — with    sentiments 

like  these  in  it : 

Exhibit  G 

To  spend  years  thus  and  be  rewarded, 
As  thou,  sweet  love,  requited  me 
When  none  were  near. 
.  .  .  thy  lips  did  meet 
Mine  tremblingly;  .  .  . 

Gentle  and  good  and  mild  thou  art, 
Nor  can  I  live  if  thou  appear 
Aught  but  thyself.  .  .  . 

And  so  on.  "  Before  the  close  of  June  it  was  known 
and  felt  by  Mary  and  Shelley  that  each  was  inex 
pressibly  dear  to  the  other."  Yes,  Shelley  had  found 
this  child  of  sixteen  to  his  liking,  and  had  wooed  and 
won  her  in  the  graveyard.  But  that  is  nothing; 
it  was  better  than  wooing  her  in  her  nursery,  at 
any  rate,  where  it  might  have  disturbed  the  other 
children. 

However,  she  was  a  child  in  years  only.  From  the 
day  that  she  set  her  masculine  grip  on  Shelley  he 
was  to  frisk  no  more.  ;^If  she  had  occupied  the  only 
kind  and  gentle  Harriet's  place  in  March  it  would 
have  been  a  thrilling  spectacle  to  see  her  invade  the 
Boinville  rookery  and  read  the  riot  act.  That  holi 
day  of  Shelley's  would  have  been  of  short  duration, 
and  Cornelia's  hair  would  have  been  as  gray  as  her 
mother's  when  the  services  were  over. 

Hogg  went  to  the  Godwin  residence  in  Skinner 


MARK     TWAIN 

Street  with  Shelley  on  that  8th  of  June.  They  passed 
through  Godwin's  little  debt-factory  of  a  book-shop 
and  went  up-stairs  hunting  for  the  proprietor.  No 
body  there.  Shelley  strode  about  the  room  im 
patiently,  making  its  crazy  floor  quake  under  him. 
Then  a  door  "was  partially  and  softly  opened.  A 
thrilling  voice  called,  'Shelley!'  A  thrilling  voice 
answered,  'Mary!'  And  he  darted  out  of  the  room 
like  an  arrow  from  the  bow  of  the  far-shooting  King. 
A  very  young  female,  fair  and  fair-haired,  pale, 
indeed,  and  with  a  piercing  look,  wearing  a  frock  of 
tartan,  an  unusual  dress  in  London  at  that  time,  had 
called  him  out  of  the  room." 

This  is  Mary  Godwin,  as  described  by  Hogg.  The 
thrill  of  the  voices  shows  that  the  love  of  Shelley  and 
Mary  was  already  upward  of  a  fortnight  old;  there 
fore  it  had  been  born  within  the  month  of  May — 
born  while  Harriet  was  still  trying  to  get  her  poem 
by  heart,  we  think.  I  must  not  be  asked  how  I 
know  so  much  about  that  thrill;  it  is  my  secret. 
The  biographer  and  I  have  private  ways  of  finding 
out  things  when  it  is  necessary  to  find  them  out  and 
the  customary  methods  fail. 

Shelley  left  London  that  day,  and  was  gone  ten 
days.  The  biographer  conjectures  that  he  spent 
this  interval  with  Harriet  in  Bath.  It  would  be  just 
like  him.  j  To  the  end  of  his  days  he  liked  to  be  in 
love  with  two  women  at  once.  He  was  more  in  love 
with  Miss  Kitchener  when  he  married  Harriet  than 
he  was  with  Harriet ,  and  told  the  lady  so  with  sim 
ple  and  unostentatious  candor.  He  was  more  in 
love  with  Cornelia  than  he  was  with  Harriet  in  the 

46 


DEFENSE  OF  HARRIET  SHELLEY 

end  of  1813  and  the  beginning  of  1814,  yet  he  sup 
plied  both  of  them  with  love  poems  of  an  equal 
temperature  meantime;  he  loved  Mary  and  Harriet 
in  June,  and  while  getting  ready  to  run  off  with  the 
one,  it  is  conjectured  that  he  put  in  his  odd  time 
trying  to  get  reconciled  to  the  other;  by  and  by, 
while  still  in  love  with  Mary,  he  will  make  love  to 
her  half-sister  by  marriage,  adoption,  and  the  visita 
tion  of  God,  through  the  medium  of  clandestine 
letters,  and  she  will  answer  with  letters  that  are  for 
no  eye  but  his  own. 

When  Shelley  encountered  Mary  Godwin  he  was 
looking  around  for  another  paradise.  He  had  tastes 
of  his  own,  and  there  were  features  about  the  God-- 
win  establishment  that  strongly  recommended  it. 
Godwin  was  an  advanced  thinker  and  an  able  writer. 
One  of  his  romances  is  still  read,  but  his  philo 
sophical  works,  once  so  esteemed,  are  out  of  vogue 
now;  their  authority  was  already  declining  when 
Shelley  made  his  acquaintance — that  is,  it  was  de 
clining  with  the  public,  but  not  with  Shelley.  They 
had  been  his  moral  and  political  Bible,  and  they 
were  that  yet.  Shelley  the  infidel  would  himself 
have  claimed  to  be  less  a  work  of  God  than  a  work 
of  Godwin.  Godwin's  philosophies  had  formed  his 
mind  and  interwoven  themselves  into  it  and  become 
a  part  of  its  texture;  he  regarded  himself  as  God 
win's  spiritual  son.  Godwin  was  not  without  self- 
appreciation;  indeed,  it  may  be  conjectured  that 
from  his  point  of  view  the  last  syllable  of  his  name 
was  surplusage.  He  lived  serene  in  his  lofty  world 
of  philosophy,  far  above  the  mean  interests  that 

47 


MARK    TWAIN 

absorbed  smaller  men,  and  only  came  down  to  the 
ground  at  intervals  to  pass  the  hat  for  alms  to  pay 
his  debts  with,  and  insult  the  man  that  relieved  him. 
Several  of  his  principles  were  out  of  the  ordinary. 
For  example,  he  was  opposed  to  marriage.  He  was 
not  aware  that  his  preachings  from  this  text  were 
but  theory  and  wind;  he  supposed  he  was  in  earnest 
in  imploring  people  to  live  together  without  marry 
ing,  until  Shelley  furnished  him  a  working  model  of 
his  scheme  and  a  practical  example  to  analyze,  by 
applying  the  principle  in  his  own  family;  the  matter 
took  a  different  and  surprising  aspect  then.  The 
late  Matthew  Arnold  said  that  the  main  defect  in 
Shelley's  make-up  was  that  he  was  destitute  of  the 
sense  of  humor.  This  episode  must  have  escaped 
Mr.  Arnold's  attention. 

But  we  have  said  enough  about  the  head  of  the 
new  paradise.  Mrs.  Godwin  is  described  as  being  in 
several  ways  a  terror  ;  and  even  when  her  soul  was  in 
repose  she  wore  green  spectacles.  But  I  suspect  that 
her  main  unattractiveness  was  born  of  the  fact  that 
she  wrote  the  letters  that  are  out  in  the  appendix- 
basket  in  the  back  yard  —  letters  which  are  an  out 
rage  and  wholly  untrustworthy,  for  they  say  some 
kind  things  about  poor  Harriet  and  tell  some  dis 
agreeable  truths  about  her  husband;  and  these  things 
make  the  fabulist  grit  his  teeth  a  good  deal. 

Next  we  have  Fanny  Godwin  —  a  Godwin  by 
courtesy  only;  she  was  Mrs.  Godwin's  natural 
daughter  by  a  former  friend.  She  was  a  sweet  and 
winning  girl,  but  she  presently  wearied  of  the  God 
win  paradise,  and  poisoned  herself. 
^  48 


DEFENSE  OF  HARRIET  SHELLEY 

Last  in  the  list  is  Jane  (or  Claire,  as  she  preferred 
to  call  herself)  Clairmont,  daughter  of  Mrs.  Godwin 
by  a  former  marriage.  She  was  very  young  and 
pretty  and  accommodating,  and  always  ready  to  do 
what  she  could  to  make  things  pleasant.  After 
Shelley  ran  off  with  her  part-sister  Mary,  she  be 
came  the  guest  of  the  pair,  and  contributed  a  natural 
child  to  their  nursery — Allegra.  Lord  Byron  was 
the  father. 

We  have  named  the  several  members  and  advan 
tages  of  the  new  paradise  in  Skinner  Street,  with  its 
crazy  book-shop  underneath.  Shelley  was  all  right 
now,  this  was  a  better  place  than  the  other;  more 
variety  anyway,  and  more  different  kinds  of  fra 
grance.  One  could  turn  out  poetry  here  without  any 
trouble  at  all. 

The  way  the  new  love-match  came  about  was  this : 
Shelley  told  Mary  all  his  aggravations  and  sorrows 
and  griefs,  and  about  the  wet-nurse  and  the  bonnet- 
shop  and  the  surgeon  and  the  carriage,  and  the 
sister-in-law  that  blocked  the  London  game,  and 
about  Cornelia  and  her  mamma,  and  how  they  had 
turned  him  out  of  the  house  after  making  so  much 
of  him;  and  how  he  had  deserted  Harriet  and  then 
Harriet  had  deserted  him,  and  how  the  reconciliation 
was  working  along  and  Harriet  getting  her  poem  by 
heart;  and  still  he  was  not  happy,  and  Mary  pitied 
him,  for  she  had  had  trouble  herself.  But  I  am  not 
satisfied  with  this.  It  reads  too  much  like  statistics. 
It  lacks  smoothness  and  grace,  and  is  too  earthy  and 
business-like.  It  has  the  sordid  look  of  a  trades- 
union  procession  out  on  strike.  That  is  not  the 

4Q 


MARK    TWAIN 

right  form  for  it.     The  book  does  it  better;  we  will 
fall  back  on  the  book  and  have  a  cake-walk: 

It  was  easy  to  divine  that  some  restless  grief  possessed  him; 
Mary  herself  was  not  unlearned  in  the  lore  of  pain.  His  generous 
zeal  in  her  father's  behalf,  his  spiritual  sonship  to  Godwin,  his 
reverence  for  her  mother's  memory,  were  guarantees  with  Mary 
of  his  excellence.1  The  new  friends  could  not  lack  subjects  of 
discourse,  and  underneath  their  words  about  Mary's  mother,  and 
"Political  Justice,"  and  "Rights  of  Woman,"  were  two  young 
hearts,  each  feeling  toward  the  other,  each  perhaps  unaware, 
trembling  in  the  direction  of  the  other.  The  desire  to  assuage 
the  suffering  of  one  whose  happiness  has  grown  precious  to  us 
may  become  a  hunger  of  the  spirit  as  keen  as  any  other,  and  this 
hunger  now  possessed  Mary's  heart;  when  her  eyes  rested  unseen 
on  Shelley,  it  was  with  a  look  full  of  the  ardor  of  a  "soothing 

pity." 

Yes,  that  is  better  and  has  more  composure.  That 
is  just  the  way  it  happened.  He  told  her  about  the 
wet-nurse,  she  told  him  about  political  justice;  he 
told  her  about  the  deadly  sister-in-law,  she  told  him 
about  her  mother;  he  told  her  about  the  bonnet- 
shop,  she  murmured  back  about  the  rights  of  woman ; 
then  he  assuaged  her,  then  she  assuaged  him;  then 
he  assuaged  her  some  more,  next  she  assuaged  him 
some  more;  then  they  both  assuaged  one  another 
simultaneously;  and  so  they  went  on  by  the  hour 
assuaging  and  assuaging  and  assuaging,  until  at  last 
what  was  the  result?  They  were  in  love.  It  will 
happen  so  every  time. 

He  had  married  a  woman  who,  as  he  now  persuaded  himself, 
had  never  truly  loved  him,  who  loved  only  his  fortune  and  his 
rank,  and  who  proved  her  selfishness  by  deserting  him  in  his 
misery. 

1  What  she  was  after  was  guarantees  of  his  excellence.  That  he 
stood  ready  to  desert  his  wife  and  child  was  one  of  them,  apparently. 


DEFENSE  OF  HARRIET  SHELLEY 

I  think  that  that  is  not  quite  fair  to  Harriet.  We 
have  no  certainty  that  she  knew  Cornelia  had  turned 
him  out  of  the  house.  He  went  back  to  Cornelia, 
and  Harriet  may  have  supposed  that  he  was  as  happy 
with  her  as  ever.  Still,  it  was  judicious  to  begin  to 
lay  on  the  whitewash,  for  Shelley  is  going  to  need 
many  a  coat  of  it  now,  and  the  sooner  the  reader 
becomes  used  to  the  intrusion  of  the  brush  the 
sooner  he  will  get  reconciled  to  it  and  stop  fretting 
about  it. 

After  Shelley's  (conjectured)  visit  to  Harriet  at 
Bath — 8th  of  June  to  iSth — "it  seems  to  have  been 
arranged  that  Shelley  should  henceforth  join  the 
Skinner  Street  household  each  day  at  dinner." 

Nothing  could  be  handier  than  this;  things  will 
swim  along  now. 

Although  now  Shelley  was  coming  to  believe  that  his  wedded 
union  with  Harriet  was  a  thing  of  the  past,  he  had  not  ceased 
to  regard  her  with  affectionate  consideration;  he  wrote  to  her 
frequently,  and  kept  her  informed  of  his  whereabouts. 

We  must  not  get  impatient  over  these  curious 
inharmoniousnesses  and  irreconcilabilities  in  Shel 
ley's  character.  You  can  see  by  the  biographer's 
attitude  toward  them  that  there  is  nothing  objec 
tionable  about  them.  Shelley  was  doing  his  best  to 
make  two  adoring  young  creatures  happy:  he  was 
regarding  the  one  with  affectionate  consideration  by 
mail,  and  he  was  assuaging  the  other  one  at  home. 

Unhappy  Harriet,  residing  at  Bath,  had  perhaps  never 
desired  that  the  breach  between  herself  and  her  husband  should 
be  irreparable  and  complete. 


MARK    TWAIN 

I  find  no  fault  with  that  sentence  except  that  the 
"perhaps"  is  not  strictly  warranted.  It  should 
have  been  left  out.  In  support — or  shall  we  say 
extenuation? — of  this  opinion  I  submit  that  there 
is  not  sufficient  evidence  to  warrant  the  uncertainty 
which  it  implies.  The  only  "evidence"  offered 
that  Harriet  was  hard  and  proud  and  standing  out 
against  a  reconciliation  is  a  poem — the  poem  in 
which  Shelley  beseeches  her  to  "bid  the  remorse 
less  feeling  flee"  and  "pity"  if  she  "cannot  love." 
We  have  just  that  as  "evidence,"  and  out  of  its 
meager  materials  the  biographer  builds  a  cobhouse 
of  conjectures  as  big  as  the  Coliseum;  conjectures 
which  convince  him,  the  prosecuting  attorney,  but 
ought  to  fall  far  short  of  convincing  any  fair-minded 
jury. 

Shelley's  love  poems  may  be  very  good  evidence, 
but  we  know  well  that  they  are  "good  for  this  day 
and  train  "only."  We  are  able  to  believe  that  they 
spoke  the  truth  for  that  one  day,  but  we  know  by 
experience  that  they  could  not  be  depended  on  to 
speak  it  the  next.  The  very  supplication  for  a  re- 
warming  of  Harriet's  chilled  love  was  followed  so 
suddenly  by  the  poet's  plunge  into  an  adoring  pas 
sion  for  Mary  Godwin  that  if  it  had  been  a  check  it 
would  have  lost  its  value  before  a  lazy  person  could 
have  gotten  to  the  bank  with  it. 

Hardness,  stubbornness,  pride,  vindictiveness — 
these  may  sometimes  reside  in  a  young  wife  and 
mother  of  nineteen,  but  they  are  not  charged  against 
Harriet  Shelley  outside  of  that  poem,  and  one  has 
no  right  to  insert  them  into  her  character  on  such 

52 


DEFENSE  OF  HARRIET  SHELLEY 

shadowy  "evidence"  as  that.  Peacock  knew  Har 
riet  well,  and  she  has  a  flexible  and  persuadable 
look,  as  painted  by  him: 

Her  manners  were  good,  and  her  whole  aspect  and  demeanor 
such  manifest  emanations  of  pure  and  truthful  nature  that  to 
be  once  in  her  company  was  to  know  her  thoroughly.  She  was 
fond  of  her  husband,  and  accommodated  herself  in  every  way 
to  his  tastes.  If  they  mixed  in  society,  she  adorned  it;  if  they 
lived  in  retirement,  she  was  satisfied;  if  they  traveled,  she 
enjoyed  the  change  of  scene. 

"Perhaps"  she  had  never  desired  that  the  breach 
should  be  irreparable  and  complete.  The  truth  is, 
we  do  not  even  know  that  there  was  any  breach  at 
all  at  this  time.  We  know  that  the  husband  and 
wife  went  before  the  altar  and  took  a  new  oath  on 
the  24th  of  March  to  love  and  cherish  each  other 
until  death — and  this  may  be  regarded  as  a  sort  of 
reconciliation  itself,  and  a  wiping  out  of  the  old 
grudges.  Then  Harriet  went  away,  and  the  sister- 
in-law  removed  herself  from  her  society.  That  was 
in  April.  Shelley  wrote  his  "appeal"  in  May, 
but  the  corresponding  went  right  along  afterward. 
We  have  a  right  to  doubt  that  the  subject  of  it  was 
a  "reconciliation,"  or  that  Harriet  had  any  suspi 
cion  that  she  needed  to  be  reconciled  and  that  her 
husband  was  trying  to  persuade  her  to  it — as  the 
biographer  has  sought  to  make  us  believe,  with  his 
Coliseum  of  conjectures  built  out  of  a  waste-basket 
of  poetry.  For  we  have  "evidence"  now — not 
poetry  and  conjecture.  When  Shelley  had  been 
dining  daily  in  the  Skinner  Street  paradise  fifteen 
dayj  and  continuing  the  love-match  which  was 

53 


MARK     TWAIN 

already  a  fortnight  old  twenty-five  days  earlier,  he 
forgot  to  write  Harriet;  forgot  it  the  next  day  and 
the  next.  During  four  days  Harriet  got  no  letter 
from  him.  Then  her  fright  and  anxiety  rose  to 
expression-heat,  and  she  wrote  a  letter  to  Shelley's 
publisher  which  seems  to  reveal  to  us  that  Shelley's 
letters  to  her  had  been  the  customary  affectionate 
letters  of  husband  to  wife,  and  had  carried  no  ap 
peals  for  reconciliation  and  had  not  needed  to: 

BATH  (postmark  July  7,  1814). 

MY  DEAR  SIR, — You  will  greatly  oblige  me  by  giving  the 
inclosed  to  Mr.  Shelley.  I  would  not  trouble  you,  but  it  is 
now  four  days  since  I  have  heard  from  him,  which  to  me  is  an 
age.  Will  you  write  by  return  of  post  and  tell  me  what  has 
become  of  him?  as  I  always  fancy  something  dreadful  has  hap 
pened  if  I  do  not  hear  from  him.  If  you  tell  me  that  he  is  well 
I  shall  not  come  to  London,  but  if  I  do  not  hear  from  you  or 
him  I  shall  certainly  come,  as  I  cannot  endure  this  dreadful 
state  of  suspense.  You  are  his  friend  and  you  can  feel  for  me. 

I  remain  yours  truly, 

H.S. 

Even  without  Peacock's  testimony  that  "her  whole 
aspect  and  demeanor  were  manifest  emanations  of  a 
pure  and  truthful  nature,"  we  should  hold  this  to 
be  a  truthful  letter,  a  sincere  letter,  a  loving  letter; 
it  bears  those  marks;  I  think  it  is  also  the  letter  of 
a  person  accustomed  to  receiving  letters  from  her 
husband  frequently,  and  that  they  have  been  of  a 
welcome  and  satisfactory  sort,  too,  this  long  time 
back— -ever  since  the  solemn  remarriage  and  recon 
ciliation  at  the  altar  most  likely. 

The  biographer  follows  Harriet's  letter  with  a 
conjecture.  He  conjectures  that  she  "would  now 

54 


DEFENSE  OF  HARRIET  SHELLEY 

gladly  have  retraced  her  steps."  Which  means  that 
it  is  proven  that  she  had  steps  to  retrace — proven 
by  the  poem.  Well,  if  the  poem  is  better  evidence 
than  the  letter,  we  must  let  it  stand  at  that. 

Then  the  biographer  attacks  Harriet  Shelley's 
honor — by  authority  of  random  and  unverified  gos 
sip  scavengered  from  a  group  of  people  whose  very 
names  make  a  person  shudder:  Mary  Godwin,  mis 
tress  of  Shelley;  her  part-sister,  discarded  mistress 
of  Lord  Byron;  Godwin,  the  philosophical  tramp, 
who  gathers  his  share  of  it  from  a  shadow — that  is 
to  say,  from  a  person  whom  he  shirks  out  of  naming. 
Yet  the  biographer  dignifies  this  sorry  rubbish  with 
the  name  of  " evidence." 

Nothing  remotely  resembling  a  distinct  charge 
from  a  named  person  professing  to  know  is  offered 
among  this  precious  "evidence." 

1.  "Shelley  believed"  so  and  so. 

2.  Byron's  discarded  mistress  says  that  Shelley 
told  Mary  Godwin  so  and  so,  and  Mary  told  her. 

3.  "Shelley  said"  so  and  so  —  and  later  "admit 
ted    over    and   over    again    that   he    had   been  in 


error." 


4.  The  unspeakable  Godwin  "wrote  to  Mr.  Bax 
ter"  that  he  knew  so  and  so  "from  unquestionable 
authority" — name  not  furnished. 
^  How  any  man  in  his  right  mind  could  bring  him 
self  to  defile  the  grave  of  a  shamefully  abused  and 
defenseless  girl  with  these  baseless  fabrications,  this 
manufactured  filth,  is  inconceivable.  How  any  man, 
in  his  right  mind  or  out  of  it,  could  sit  down  and 
coldly  try  to  persuade  anybody  to  believe  it,  or 
5  55 


MARK    TWAIN 

listen  patiently  to  it,  or,  indeed,  do  anything  but 
scoff  at  it  and  deride  it,  is  astonishing. 

The  charge  insinuated  by  these  odious  slanders  is 
one  of  the  most  difficult  of  all  offenses  to  prove;  it 
is  also  one  which  no  man  has  a  right  to  mention 
even  in  a  whisper  about  any  woman,  living  or  dead, 
unless  he  knows  it  to  be  true,  and  not  even  then 
unless  he  can  also  prove  it  to  be  true.  There  is  no 
justification  for  the  abomination  of  putting  this  stuff 
in  the  book. J 

Against  Harriet  Shelley's  good  name  there  is  not 
one  scrap  of  tarnishing  evidence,  and  not  even  a 
scrap  of  evil  gossip,  that  comes  from  a  source  that 
entitles  it  to  a  hearing. 

On  the  credit  side  of  the  account  we  have  strong 
opinions  from  the  people  who  knew  her  best.  Pea 
cock  says: 

I  feel  it  due  to  the  memory  of  Harriet  to  state  my  most 
decided  conviction  that  her  conduct  as  a  wife  was  as  pure,  as 
true,  as  absolutely  faultless,  as  that  of  any  who  for  such  conduct 
are  held  most  in  honor. 

Thornton  Hunt,  who  had  picked  and  published 
slight  flaws  in  Harriet's  character,  says,  as  regards 
this  alleged  large  one: 

There  is  not  a  trace  of  evidence  or  a  whisper  of  scandal 
against  her  before  her  voluntary  departure  from  Shelley. 

Trelawney  says: 

I  was  assured  by  the  evidence  of  the  few  friends  who  knew 
both  Shelley  and  his  wife — Hookham,  Hogg,  Peacock,  and  one 
of  the  Godwins — that  Harriet  was  perfectly  innocent  of  all 
offense. 

56 


DEFENSE  OF  HARRIET  SHELLEY 

What  excuse  was  there  for  raking  up  a  parcel  of 
foul  rumors  from  malicious  and  discredited  sources 
and  flinging  them  at  this  dead  girl's  head?  Her 
very  defenselessness  should  have  been  her  protec 
tion.  The  fact  that  all  letters  to  her  or  about  her, 
with  almost  every  scrap  of  her  own  writing,  had 
been  diligently  mislaid,  leaving  her  case  destitute  of 
a  voice,  while  every  pen-stroke  which  could  help 
her  husband's  side  had  been  as  diligently  preserved, 
should  have  excused  her  from  being  brought  to 
trial.  Her  witnesses  have  all  disappeared,  yet  we 
see  her  summoned  in  her  grave-clothes  to  plead  for 
the  life  of  her  character,  without  the  help  of  an  ad 
vocate,  before  a  disqualified  judge  and  a  packed  i 
jury. 

Harriet  Shelley  wrote  her  distressed  letter  on  the 
7th  of  July.  On  the  28th  her  husband  ran  away 
with  Mary  Godwin  and  her  part-sister  Claire  to  the 
Continent.  He  deserted  his  wife  when  her  confine 
ment  was  approaching.  She  bore  him  a  child  at  the 
end  of  November,  his  mistress  bore  him  another  one 
something  over  two  months  later.  The  truants  were 
back  in  London  before  either  of  these  events  occurred. 

On  one  occasion,  presently,  Shelley  was  so  pressed 
for  money  to  support  his  mistress  with  that  he  went 
to  his  wife  and  got  some  money  of  his  that  was  in 
her  hands — twenty  pounds.  Yet  the  mistress  was 
not  moved  to  gratitude;  for  later,  when  the  wife 
was  troubled  to  meet  her  engagements,  the  mistress 
makes  this  entry  in  her  diary : 

Harriet  sends  her  creditors  here;  nasty  woman.  Now  we 
shall  have  to  change  our  lodgings. 

5  S7 


MARK    TWAIN 

The  deserted  wife  bore  the  bitterness  and  obloquy 
of  her  situation  two  years  and  a  quarter;  then  she 
gave  up,  and  drowned  herself.  A  month  afterward 
the  body  was  found  in  the  water.  Three  weeks 
later  Shelley  married  his  mistress. 

I  must  here  be  allowed  to  italicize  a  remark  of  the 
biographer's  concerning  Harriet  Shelley: 

That  no  act  of  Shelley's  during  the  two  years  which  immediately 
preceded  her  death  tended  to  cause  the  rash  act  which  brought  her 
life  to  its  close  seems  certain. 

Yet  her  husband  had  deserted  her  and  her  chil 
dren,  and  was  living  with  a  concubine  all  that  time! 
Why  should  a  person  attempt  to  write  biography 
when  the  simplest  facts  have  no  meaning  to  him? 
This  book  is  littered  with  as  crass  stupidities  as  that 
one — deductions  by  the  page  which  bear  no  dis 
coverable  kinship  to  their  premises. 

The  biographer  throws  off  that  extraordinary  re 
mark  without  any  perceptible  disturbance  to  his 
serenity;  for  he  follows  it  with  a  sentimental  justi 
fication  of  Shelley's  conduct  which  has  not  a  pang  of 
conscience  in  it,  but  is  silky  and  smooth  and  undu 
lating  and  pious — a  cake-walk  with  all  the  colored 
brethren  at  their  best.  There  may  be  people  who 
can  read  that  page  and  keep  their  temper,  but  it  is 
doubtful. 

Shelley's  life  has  the  one  indelible  blot  upon  it, 
but  is  otherwise  worshipfully  noble  and  beautiful. 
It  even  stands  out  indestructibly  gracious  and  lovely 
from  the  ruck  of  these  disastrous  pages,  in  spite  of 
the  fact  that  they  expose  and  establish  his  responsi- 

58 


DEFENSE  OF  HARRIET  SHELLEY 

bility  for  his  forsaken  wife's  pitiful  fate — a  re 
sponsibility  which  he  himself  tacitly  admits  in  a 
letter  to  Eliza  Westbrook,  jwherein  he  refers  to  his 
taking  up  with  Mary  Godwin  as  an  act  which  Eliza 
"might  excusably  regard  as  the  cause  of  her  sister's 
ruin." 


FENIMORE  COOPER'S  LITERARY 

OFFENSES 

The  Pathfinder  and  The  Deerslayer  stand  at  the  head  of 
Cooper's  novels  as  artistic  creations.  There  are  others  of  his 
works  which  contain  parts  as  perfect  as  are  to  be  found  in  these, 
and  scenes  even  more  thrilling.  Not  one  can  be  compared  with 
either  of  them  as  a  finished  whole. 

The  defects  in  both  of  these  tales  are  comparatively  slight. 
They  were  pure  works  of  art. — Prof.  Lounsbury. 

The  five  tales  reveal  an  extraordinary  fullness  of  invention. 

.  .  .  One  of  the  very  greatest  characters  in  fiction,  Natty 
Bumppo.  .  .  . 

The  craft  of  the  woodsman,  the  tricks  of  the  trapper,  all  the 
delicate  art  of  the  forest,  were  familiar  to  Cooper  from  his  youth 
up. — Prof.  Brander  Matthews. 

Cooper  is  the  greatest  artist  in  the  domain  of  romantic  fiction 
yet  produced  by  America. — Wilkie  Collins. 

IT  seems  to  me  that  it  was  far  from  right  for  the 
Professor  of  English  Literature  in  Yale,  the  Pro 
fessor  of  English  Literature  in  Columbia,  and  Wilkie 
Collins  to'  deliver  opinions  on  Cooper's  literature 
without  having  read  some  of  it.  It  would  have  been 
much  more  decorous  to  keep  silent  and  let  persons 
talk  who  have  read  Cooper. 

Cooper's  art  has  some  defects.  In  one  place  in 
Deerslayer,  and  in  the  restricted  space  of  two-thirds 
of  a  page,  Cooper  has  scored  114  offenses  against  lit 
erary  art  out  of  a  possible  115.  It  breaks  the  record. 

60 


COOPER'S    LITERARY    OFFENSES 

There  are  nineteen  rules  governing  literary  art  in 
the  domain  of  romantic  fiction — some  say  twenty- 
two.  In  Deerslayer  Cooper  violated  eighteen  of 
them.  These  eighteen  require: 

1.  That  a  tale  shall  accomplish  something  and 
arrive  somewhere.     But  the  Deerslayer  tale  accom 
plishes  nothing  and  arrives  in  the  air. 

2.  They  require  that  the  episodes  of  a  tale  shall 
be  necessary  parts  of  the  tale,  and  shall  help  to 
develop  it.     But  as  the  Deerslayer  tale  is  not  a  tale, 
and  accomplishes  nothing  and  arrives  nowhere,  the 
episodes  have  no  rightful  place  in  the  work,  since 
there  was  nothing  for  them  to  develop. 

3.  They  require  that  the  personages  in  a  tale  shall 
be  alive,   except  in  the  case  of  corpses,  and  that 
always  the  reader  shall  be  able  to  tell  the  corpses 
from  the  others.     But  this  detail  has  often  been 
overlooked  in  the  Deerslayer  tale. 

4.  They  require  that  the  personages  in  a  tale,  both 
dead  and  alive,  shall  exhibit  a  sufficient  excuse  for 
being  there.     But  this  detail  also  has  been  over 
looked  in  the  Deerslayer  tale. 

5 .  They  require  that  when  the  personages  of  a  tale 
deal  in  conversation,  the  talk  shall  sound  like  hu 
man  talk,  and  be  talk  such  as  human  beings  would 
be  likely  to  talk  in  the  given  circumstances,  and  have 
a  discoverable  meaning,  also  a  discoverable  purpose, 
and  a  show  of  relevancy,  and  remain  in  the  neigh 
borhood  of  the  subject  in  hand,  and  be  interesting 
to  the   reader,    and   help    out   the    tale,   and  stop 
when  the  people  cannot  think  of  anything  more  to 
say.     But  this  requirement  has  been  ignored  from 

61 


MARK     TWAIN 

the  beginning   of  the  Deerslayer   tale  to  the   end 
of  it. 

6.  They  require  that  when  the  author  describes 
the  character  of  a  personage  in  his  tale,  the  conduct 
and  conversation  of  that  personage  shall  justify  said 
description.    But  this  law  gets  little  or  no  attention 
in  the  Deerslayer  tale,  as  Natty  Bumppo's  case  will 
amply  prove. 

7.  They  require  that  when  a  personage  talks  like 
an    illustrated,    gilt-edged,    tree-calf,    hand-tooled, 
seven-dollar  Friendship's  Offering  in  the  beginning 
of  a  paragraph,  he  shall  not  talk  like  a  negro  minstrel 
in  the  end  of  it.     But  this  rule  is  flung  down  and 
danced  upon  in  the  Deerslayer  tale. 

8.  They  require  that  crass  stupidities  shall  not  be 
played  upon  the  reader  as  "the  craft  of  the  woods 
man,  the  delicate  art  of  the  forest,"  by  either  the 
author  or  the  people  in  the  tale.     But  this  rule  is 
persistently  violated  in  the  Deerslayer  tale. 

9.  They  require  that  the  personages  of  a  tale  shall 
confine  themselves  to  possibilities  and  let  miracles 
alone;  or,  if  they  venture  a  miracle,  the  author  must 
so  plausibly  set  it  forth  as  to  make  it  look  possible 
and  reasonable.     But  these  rules  are  not  respected 
in  the  Deerslayer  tale. 

10.  They  require  that  the  author  shall  make  the 
reader  feel  a  deep  interest  in  the  personages  of  his 
tale  and  in  their  fate;   and  that  he  shall  make  the 
reader  love  the  good  people  in  the  tale  and  hate  the 
bad  ones.     But  the  reader  of  the  Deerslayer  tale  dis 
likes  the  good  people  in  it,  is  indifferent  to  the  oth 
ers,  and  wishes  they  would  all  get  drowned  together. 

62 


COOPER'S    LITERARY    OFFENSES 

11.  They  require  that  the  characters  in  a  tale 
shall  be  so  clearly  defined  that  the  reader  can  tell 
beforehand  what  each  will  do  in  a  given  emergency. 
But  in  the  Deerslayer  tale  this  rule  is  vacated. 

In  addition  to  these  large  rules  there  are  some 
little  ones.  These  require  that  the  author  shall 

12.  Say  what  he  is  proposing  to  say,  not  merely 
come  near  it. 

13.  Use  the  right  word,  not  its  second  cousin. 
<L4>  Eschew  surplusage. 

15.  Not  omit  necessary  details. 

1 6.  Avoid  slovenliness  of  form. 

17.  Use  good  grammar. 

1 8.  Employ  a  simple  and  straightforward  style. 
Even  these  seven  are  coldly  and  persistently  vio 
lated  in  the  Deerslayer  tale. 

Cooper's  gift  in  the  way  of  invention  was  not  a 
rich  endowment;  but  such  as  it  was  he  liked  to 
work  it,  he  was  pleased  with  the  effects,  and  indeed 
he  did  some  quite  sweet  things  with  it.  In  his  little 
box  of  stage-properties  he  kept  six  or  eight  cunning 
devices,  tricks,  artifices  for  his  savages  and  woods 
men  to  deceive  and  circumvent  each  other  with,  and 
he  was  never  so  happy  as  when  he  was  working 
these  innocent  things  and  seeing  them  go.  A 
favorite  one  was  to  make  a  moccasined  person 
tread  in  the  tracks  of  the  moccasined  enemy,  and 
thus  hide  his  own  trail.  Cooper  wore  out  barrels 
and  barrels  of  moccasins  in  working  that  trick. 
Another  stage-property  that  he  pulled  out  of  his 
box  pretty  frequently  was  his  broken  twig.  He 
prized  his  broken  twig  above  all  the  rest  of  his 

63 


MARK    TWAIN 

effects,  and  worked  it  the  hardest.  It  is  a  restful 
chapter  in  any  book  of  his  when  somebody  doesn't 
step  on  a  dry  twig  and  alarm  all  the  reds  and  whites 
for  two  hundred  yards  around.  Every  time  a 
Cooper  person  is  in  peril,  and  absolute  silence  is 
worth  four  dollars  a  minute,  he  is  sure  to  step  on  a 
dry  twig.  There  may  be  a  hundred  handier  things 
to  step  on,  but  that  wouldn't  satisfy  Cooper. 
Cooper  requires  him  to  turn  out  and  find  a  dry 
twig;  and  if  he  can't  do  it,  go  and  borrow  one. 
In  fact,  the  Leatherstocking  Series  ought  to  have 
been  called  the  Broken  Twig  Series. 

I  am  sorry  there  is  not  room  to  put  in  a  few 
dozen  instances  of  the  delicate  art  of  the  forest,  as 
practised  by  Natty  Bumppo  and  some  of  the  other 
Cooperian  experts.  Perhaps  we  may  venture  two 
or  three  samples.  [[Cooper  was  a  sailor — a  naval 
officer;  yet  he  gravely  tells  us  how  a  vessel,  driving 
toward  a  lee  shore  in  a  gale,  is  steered  for  a  par 
ticular  spot  by  her  skipper  because  he  knows  of  an 
undertow  there  which  will  hold  her  back  against  the 
gale  and  save  her.  For  just  pure  woodcraft,  or 
sailorcraft,  or  whatever  it  is,  isn't  that  neat  ^J  For 
several  years  Cooper  was  daily  in  the  society  of 
artillery,  and  he  ought  to  have  noticed  that  when  a 
cannon-ball  strikes  the  ground  it  either  buries  itself 
or  skips  a  hundred  feet  or  so;  skips  again  a  hundred 
feet  or  so — and  so  on,  till  finally  it  gets  tired  and 
rolls.  Now  in  one  place  he  loses  some  "females" 
— as  he  always  calls  women — in  the  edge  of  a 
wood  near  a  plain  at  night  in  a  fog,  on  purpose  to 
give  Bumppo  a  chance  to  show  off  the  delicate  art 


COOPER'S    LITERARY    OFFENSES 

of  the  forest  before  the  reader.  These  mislaid  peo 
ple  are  hunting  for  a  fort.  They  hear  a  cannon- 
blast,  and  a  cannon-ball  presently  comes  rolling  into 
the  wood  and  stops  at  their  feet.  To  the  females 
this  suggests  nothing.  The  case  is  very  different 
with  the  admirable  Bumppo.  I  wish  I  may  never 
know  peace  again  if  he  doesn't  strike  out  promptly 
and  follow  the  track  of  that  cannon-ball  across  the 
plain  through  the  dense  fog  and  find  the  fort.  Isn't 
it  a  daisy  r]  If  Cooper  had  any  real  knowledge  of 
Nature's  ways  of  doing  things,  he  had  a  most  deli 
cate  art  in  concealing  the  fact.  For  instance:  one 
of  his  acute  Indian  experts,  Chingachgook  (pro 
nounced  Chicago,  I  think),  has  lost  the  trail  of  a 
person  he  is  tracking  through  the  forest.  Appar 
ently  that  trail  is  hopelessly  lost.  Neither  you  nor 
I  could  ever  have  guessed  out  the  way  to  find  it.  It 
was  very  different  with  Chicago.  Chicago  was  not 
stumped  for  long.  He  turned  a  running  stream  out 
of  its  course,  and  there,  in  the  slush  in  its  old  bed, 
were  that  person's  moccasin  tracks.  The  current 
did  not  wash  them  away,  as  it  would  have  done  in 
all  other  like  cases — no,  even  the  eternal  laws  of 
Nature  have  to  vacate  when  Cooper  wants  to  put 
up  a  delicate  job  of  woodcraft  on  the  reader. 

We  must  be  a  little  wary  when  Brander  Matthews 
tell  us  that  Cooper's  books  "reveal  an  extraordi 
nary  fullness  of  invention."  As  a  rule,  I  am  quite 
willing  to  accept  Brander  Matthews's  literary  judg 
ments  and  applaud  his  lucid  and  graceful  phrasing 
of  them;  but  that  particular  statement  needs  to  be 
taken  with  a  few  tons  of  salt.  Bless  your  heart, 


MARK     TWAIN 

Cooper  hadn't  any  more  invention  than  a  horse; 
and  I  don't  mean  a  high-class  horse,  either;  I  mean 
a  clothes-horse.  It  would  be  very  difficult  to  find  a 
really  clever  " situation'*  in  Cooper's  books,  and 
still  more  difficult  to  find  one  of  any  kind  which  he 
has  failed  to  render  absurd  by  his  handling  of  it. 
£Look  at  the  episodes  of  "the  caves";  and  at  the 
celebrated  scuffle  between  Maqua  and  those  others 
on  the  table-land  a  few  days  later;  and  at  Hurry 
Harry's  queer  water- transit  from  the  castle  to  the 
ark;  and  at  Deerslayer's  half -hour  with  his  first 
corpse;  and  at  the  quarrel  between  Hurry  Harry 
and  Deerslayer  later;  and  at — but  choose  for  your 
self;  you  can't  go  amiss.  ^ 

If  Cooper  had  been  an  observer  his  inventive 
faculty  would  have  worked  better ;  not  more  interest 
ingly,  but  more  rationally,  more  plausibly.  Cooper's 
proudest  creations  in  the  way  of  "situations"  suffer 
noticeably  from  the  absence  of  the  observer's  pro 
tecting  gift.  Cooper's  eye  was  splendidly  inaccurate. 
Cooper  seldom  saw  anything  correctly.  He  saw 
nearly  all  things  as  through  a  glass  eye,  darkly.  Of 
course  a  man  who  cannot  see  the  commonest  little 
every-day  matters  accurately  is  working  at  a  disad 
vantage  when  he  is  constructing  a  "situation."  In 
the  Deerslayer  tale  Cooper  has  a  stream  which  is 
fifty  feet  wide  where  it  flows  out  of  a  lake;  it  pres 
ently  narrows  to  twenty  as  it  meanders  along  for  no 
given  reason,  and  yet  when  a  stream  acts  like  that 
it  ought  to  be  required  to  explain  itself.  Fourteen 
pages  later  the  width  of  the  brook's  outlet  from  the 
lake  has  suddenly  shrunk  thirty  feet,  and  become 

'66 


COOPER'S    LITERARY    OFFENSES 

"the  narrowest  part  of  the  stream."  This  shrinkage 
is  not  accounted  for.  The  stream  has  bends  in  it, 
a  sure  indication  that  it  has  alluvial  banks  and  cuts  y 
them;  yet  these  bends  are  only  thirty  and  fifty  feet 
long.  If  Cooper  had  been  a  nice  and  punctilious  ob 
server  he  would  have  noticed  that  the  bends  were 
oftener  nine  hundred  feet  long  than  short  of  it. 

Cooper  made  the  exit  of  that  stream  fifty  feet 
wide,  in  the  first  place,  for  no  particular  reason;  in 
the  second  place,  he  narrowed  it  to  less  than  twenty 
to  accommodate  some  Indians.  He  bends  a  ''sap 
ling"  to  the  form  of  an  arch  over  this  narrow  passage, 
and  conceals  six  Indians  in  its  foliage.  They  are 
"laying"  for  a  settler's  scow  or  ark  which  is  coming 
up  the  stream  on  its  way  to  the  lake;  it  is  being 
hauled  against  the  stiff  current  by  a  rope  whose 
stationary  end  is  anchored  in  the  lake;  its  rate  of 
progress  cannot  be  more  than  a  mile  an  hour. 
Cooper  describes  the  ark,  but  pretty  obscurely.  In 
the  matter  of  dimensions  "it  was  little  more  than  a 
modern  canal -boat."  Let  us  guess,  then,  that  it 
was  about  one  hundred  and  forty  feet  long.  It  was 
of  "greater  breadth  than  common."  Let  us  guess, 
then,  that  it  was  about  sixteen  feet  wide.  This 
leviathan  had  been  prowling  down  bends  which  were 
but  a  third  as  long  as  itself,  and  scraping  between 
banks  where  it  had  only  two  feet  of  space  to  spare 
on  each  side.  We  cannot  too  much  admire  this  mir 
acle.  A  low-roofed  log  dwelling  occupies  "two- 
thirds  of  the  ark's  length" — a  dwelling  ninety  feet 
long  and  sixteen  feet  wide,  let  us  say — a  kind  of 
vestibule  train.  The  dwelling  has  two  rooms — each 

67 


MARK    TWAIN 

forty-five  feet  long  and  sixteen  feet  wide,  let  us  guess. 
One  of  them  is  the  bedroom  of  the  Hutter  girls, 
Judith  and  Hetty;  the  other  is  the  parlor  in  the  day 
time,  at  night  it  is  papa's  bedchamber.  The  ark  is 
arriving  at  the  stream's  exit  now,  whose  width  has 
been  reduced  to  less  than  twenty  feet  to  accommo 
date  the  Indians — say  to  eighteen.  There  is  a  foot 
to  spare  on  each  side  of  the  boat.  Did  the  Indians 
notice  that  there  was  going  to  be  a  tight  squeeze 
there  ?  Did  they  notice  that  they  could  make  money 
by  climbing  down  out  of  that  arched  sapling  and 
just  stepping  aboard  when  the  ark  scraped  by  ?  No, 
other  Indians  would  have  noticed  these  things,  but 
Cooper's  Indians  never  notice  anything.  Cooper 
thinks  they  are  marvelous  creatures  for  noticing,  but 
he  was  almost  always  in  error  about  his  Indians. 
There  was  seldom  a  sane  one  among  them. 

The  ark  is  one  hundred  and  forty-feet  long;  the 
dwelling  is  ninety  feet  long.  The  idea  of  the  Indians 
is  to  drop  softly  and  secretly  from  the  arched  sap 
ling  to  the  dwelling  as  the  ark  creeps  along  under  it 
at  the  rate  of  a  mile  an  hour,  and  butcher  the  family. 
It  will  take  the  ark  a  minute  and  a  half  to  pass  under. 
It  will  take  the  ninety-foot  dwelling  a  minute  to 
pass  under.  Now,  then,  what  did  the  six  Indians 
do?  It  would  take  you  thirty  years  to  guess,  and 
even  then  you  would  have  to  give  it  up,  I  believe. 
Therefore,  I  will  tell  you  what  the  Indians  did. 
Their  chief,  a  person  of  quite  extraordinary  intellect 
for  a  Cooper  Indian,  warily  watched  the  canal-boat 
as  it  squeezed  along  under  him,  and  when  he  had 
got  his  calculations  fined  down  to  exactly  the  right 

68 


COOPER'S    LITERARY    OFFENSES 

shade,  as  he  judged,  he  let  go  and  dropped.  And 
missed  the  house!  That  is  actually  what  he  did.  He 
missed  the  house,  and  landed  in  the  stern  of  the  scow. 
It  was  not  much  of  a  fall,  yet  it  knocked  him  silly. 
He  lay  there  unconscious.  If  the  house  had  been 
ninety-seven  feet  long  he  would  have  made  the  trip. 
The  fault  was  Cooper's,  not  his.  The  error  lay  in  the 
construction  of  the  house.  Cooper  was  no  architect. 

There  still  remained  in  the  roost  five  Indians. 
The  boat  has  passed  under  and  is  now  out  of  their 
reach.  Let  me  explain  what  the  five  did — you 
would  not  be  able  to  reason  it  out  for  yourself. 
No.  i  jumped  for  the  boat,  but  fell  in  the  water 
astern  of  it.  Then  No.  2  jumped  for  the  boat,  but 
fell  in  the  water  still  farther  astern  of  it.  Then  No. 
3  jumped  for  the  boat,  and  fell  a  good  way  astern 
of  it.  Then  No.  4  jumped  for  the  boat,  and  fell  in 
the  water  away  astern.  Then  even  No.  5  made  a 
jump  for  the  boat — for  he  was  a  Cooper  Indian. 
In  the  matter  of  intellect,  the  difference  between  a 
Cooper  Indian  and  the  Indian  that  stands  in  front  of 
the  cigar-shop  is  not  spacious.  The  scow  episode 
is  really  a  sublime  burst  of  invention;  but  it  does 
not  thrill,  because  the  inaccuracy  of  the  details 
throws  a  sort  of  air  of  fictitiousness  and  general 
improbability  over  it.  This  comes  of  Cooper's  in 
adequacy  as  an  observer. 

The  reader  will  find  some  examples  of  Cooper's 
high  talent  for  inaccurate  observation  in  the  account 
of  the  shooting-match  in  The  Pathfinder. 

A  common  wrought  nail  was  driven  lightly  into  the  target, 
its  head  having  been  first  touched  with  paint, 


MARK    TWAIN 

The  color  of  the  paint  is  not  stated — an  impor 
tant  omission,  but  Cooper  deals  freely  in  impor 
tant  omissions.  No,  after  all,  it  was  not  an  important 
omission ;  for  this  nail-head  is  a  hundred  yards  from 
the  marksmen,  and  could  not  be  seen  by  them  at 
that  distance,  no  matter  what  its  color  might  be. 
How  far  can  the  best  eyes  see  a  common  house-fly? 
A  hundred  yards?  It  is  quite  impossible.  Very 
well ;  eyes  that  cannot  see  a  house-fly  that  is  a  hun 
dred  yards  away  cannot  see  an  ordinary  nail-head  at 
that  distance,  for  the  size  of  the  two  objects  is  the 
same.  It  takes  a  keen  eye  to  see  a  fly  or  a  nail- 
head  at  fifty  yards — one  hundred  and  fifty  feet. 
Can  the  reader  do  it? 

The  nail  was  lightly  driven,  its  head  painted,  and 
game  called.  Then  the  Cooper  miracles  began.  The 
bullet  of  the  first  marksman  chipped  an  edge  of  the 
nail-head;  the  next  man's  bullet  drove  the  nail  a 
little  way  into  the  target — and  removed  all  the 
paint.  Haven't  the  miracles  gone  far  enough  now? 
Not  to  suit  Cooper;  for  the  purpose  of  this  whole 
scheme  is  to  show  off  his  prodigy,  Deerslayer- 
Hawkeye  -  Long  -  Rifle  -  Leatherstocking  -  Pathfmder- 
Bumppo  before  the  ladies. 

"Be  all  ready  to  clench  it,  boys!"  cried  out  Pathfinder,  step 
ping  into  his  friend's  tracks  the  instant  they  were  vacant. 
"  Never  mind  a  new  nail;  I  can  see  that,  though  the  paint  is 
gone,  and  what  I  can  see  I  can  hit  at  a  hundred  yards,  though  it 
were  only  a  mosquito's  eye.  Be  ready  to  clench!" 

The  rifle  cracked,  the  bullet  sped  its  way,  and  the  head  of 
the  nail  was  buried  in  the  wood,  covered  by  the  piece  of  flattened 
lead. 

There,  you  see,  is  a  man  who  could  hunt  flies 

70 


COOPER'S    LITERARY    OFFENSES 

with  a  rifle,  and  command  a  ducal  salary  in  a  Wild 
West  show  to-day  if  we  had  him  back  with  us. 

The  recorded  feat  is  certainly  surprising  just  as  it 
stands;  but  it  is  not  surprising  enough  for  Cooper. 
Cooper  adds  a  touch.  He  has  made  Pathfinder  do 
this  miracle  with  another  man's  rifle;  and  not  only 
that,  but  Pathfinder  did  not  have  even  the  advantage 
of  loading  it  himself.  He  had  everything  against 
him,  and  yet  he  made  that  impossible  shot ;  and  not 
only  made  it,  but  did  it  with  absolute  confidence, 
saying,  "Be  ready  to  clench."  Now  a  person  like 
that  would  have  undertaken  that  same  feat  with  a 
brickbat,  and  with  Cooper  to  help  he  would  have 
achieved  it,  too. 

[Pathfinder  showed  off  handsomely  that  day  before 
the  ladies.  His  very  first  feat  was  a  thing  which  no 
Wild  West  show  can  touch.  He  was  standing  with 
the  group  of  marksmen,  observing — a  hundred 
yards  from  the  target,  mind;  one  Jasper  raised  his 
rifle  and  drove  the  center  of  the  bull's-eye.  Then 
the  Quartermaster  fired.  The  target  exhibited  no 
result  this  time.  There  was  a  laugh.  "It's  a  dead 
miss,"  said  Major  Lundie.  Pathfinder  waited  an 
impressive  moment  or  two;  then  said,  in  that  calm, 
indifferent,  know-it-all  way  of  his,  "No,  Major,  he 
has  covered  Jasper's  bullet,  as  will  be  seen  if  any 
one  will  take  the  trouble  to  examine  the  target." 

Wasn't  it  remarkable!  How  could  he  see  that 
little  pellet  fly  through  the  air  and  enter  that  distant 
bullet-hole?  Yet  that  is  what  he  did;  for  nothing 
is  impossible  to  a  Cooper  person.  Did  any  of  those 
people  have  any  deep-seated  doubts  about  this  thing  ? 
6  7i 


MARK    TWAIN 

No ;  for  that  would  imply  sanity,  and  these  were  all 
Cooper  people. 

The  respect  for  Pathfinder's  skill  and  for  his  quickness  and 
accuracy  of  sight  [the  italics  are  mine]  was  so  profound  and 
general,  that  the  instant  he  made  this  declaration  the  spectators 
began  to  distrust  their  own  opinions,  and  a  dozen  rushed  to  the 
target  in  order  to  ascertain  the  fact.  There,  sure  enough,  it  was 
found  that  the  Quartermaster's  bullet  had  gone  through  the 
hole  made  by  Jasper's,  and  that,  too,  so  accurately  as  to  require 
a  minute  examination  to  be  certain  of  the  circumstance,  which, 
however,  was  soon  clearly  established  by  discovering  one  bullet 
over  the  other  in  the  stump  against  which  the  target  was  placed. 

They  made  a  "minute"  examination;  but  never 
mind,  how  could  they  know  that  there  were  two 
bullets  in  that  hole  without  digging  the  latest  one 
out?  for  neither  probe  nor  eyesight  could  prove 
the  presence  of  any  more  than  one  bullet.  Did 
they  dig?  No;  as  we  shall  see.  It  is  the  Path 
finder's  turn  now;  he  steps  out  before  the  ladies, 
takes  aim,  and  fires. 

But,  alas!  here  is  a  disappointment ;  an  incredible, 
an  unimaginable  disappointment — for  the  target's 
aspect  is  unchanged ;  there  is  nothing  there  but  that 
same  old  bullet-hole ! 

"If  one  dared  to  hint  at  such  a  thing,"  cried  Major  Duncan, 
"  I  should  say  that  the  Pathfinder  has  also  missed  the  target!" 

As  nobody  had  missed  it  yet,  the  "also"  was  not 
necessary;  but  never  mind  about  that,  for  the  Path 
finder  is  going  to  speak. 

"No,  no,  Major,"  said  he,  confidently,  "  that  would  be  a  risky 
declaration.  I  didn't  load  the  piece,  and  can't  say  what  was  in 

72 


COOPER'S    LITERARY    OFFENSES 

it;  but  if  it  was  lead,  you  will  find  the  bullet  driving  down  those 
of  the  Quartermaster  and  Jasper,  else  is  not  my  name  Pathfinder.'' 
A  shout  from  the  target  announced  the  truth  of  this  as 
sertion. 

Is  the  miracle  sufficient  as  it  stands?  Not  for 
Cooper.  The  Pathfinder  speaks  again,  as  he  "now 
slowly  advances  toward  the  stage  occupied  by  the 
females":  ^-» *•  ***-y  C*LM-  ^ ^+~+~~ 

"  That's  not  all,  boys,  that's  not  all;  if  you  find  the  target 
touched  at  all,  I'll  own  to  a  miss.  The  Quartermaster  cut  the 
Wood,  but  you'll  find  no  wood  cut  by  that  last  messenger." 

The  miracle  is  at  last  complete.  He  knew— 
doubtless  saw — at  the  distance  of  a  hundred  yards 
—that  his  bullet  had  passed  into  the  hole  without 
fraying  the  edges.  There  were  now  three  bullets  in 
that  one  hole — three  bullets  embedded  procession- 
ally  in  the  body  of  the  stump  back  of  the  target. 
Everybody  knew  this — somehow  or  other — and  yet 
nobody  had  dug  any  of  them  out  to  make  sure. 
Cooper  is  not  a  close  observer,  but  he  is  interesting. 
He  is  certainly  always  that,  no  matter  what  happens. 
And  he  is  more  interesting  when  he  is  not  noticing 
what  he  is  about  than  when  he  is.  This  is  a  con 
siderable  merit.  J 

The  conversations  in  the  Cooper  books  have  a 
curious  sound  in  our  modern  ears.  To  believe  that 
such  talk  really  ever  came  out  of  people's  mouths 
would  be  to  believe  that  there  was  a  time  when  time 
was  of  no  value  to  a  person  who  thought  he  had 
something  to  say;  when  it  was  the  custom  to  spread 
a  two-minute  remark  out  to  ten;  when  a  man's 
mouth  was  a  rolling-mill,  and  busied  itself  all  day 


MARK    TWAIN 

long  in  turning  four-foot  pigs  of  thought  into  thirty- 
foot  bars  of  conversational  railroad  iron  by  attenua 
tion;  when  subjects  were  seldom  faithfully  stuck 
to,  but  the  talk  wandered  all  around  and  arrived 
nowhere;  when  conversations  consisted  mainly  of 
irrelevancies,  with  here  and  there  a  relevancy,  a 
relevancy  with  an  embarrassed  look,  as  not  being 
able  to  explain  how  it  got  there. 

Cooper  was  certainly  not  a  master  in  the  con 
struction  of  dialogue.  Inaccurate  observation  de 
feated  him  here  as  it  defeated  him  in  so  many  other 
enterprises  of  his.  He  even  failed  to  notice  that  the 
man  who  talks  corrupt  English  six  days  in  the  week 
must  and  will  talk  it  on  the  seventh,  and  can't  help 
himself.  In  the  Deerslayer  story  he  lets  Deerslayer 
talk  the  showiest  kind  of  book-talk  sometimes,  and 
at  other  times  the  basest  of  base  dialects.  For 
instance,  when  some  one  asks  him  if  he  has  a  sweet 
heart,  and  if  so,  where  she  abides,  this  is  his  majestic 
answer : 

"  She's  in  the  forest — hanging  from  the  boughs  of  the  trees, 
in  a  soft  rain — in  the  dew  on  the  open  grass — the  clouds  that 
float  about  in  the  blue  heavens — the  birds  that  sing  in  the  woods 
— the  sweet  springs  where  I  slake  my  thirst — and  in  all  the  other 
glorious  gifts  that  come  from  God's  Providence!" 

And  he  preceded  that,  a  little  before,  with  this: 

"It  consarns  me  as  all  things  that  touches  a  fri'nd  consarns 
afri'nd." 

And  this  is  another  of  his  remarks: 

"If  I  was  Injin  born,  now,  I  might  tell  of  this,  or  carry  in  the 
scalp  and  boast  of  the  expl'ite  afore  the  whole  tribe;  or  if  my 
inimy  had  only  been  a  bear  "—[and  so  on]. 

74 


COOPER'S    LITERARY    OFFENSES 

[]We  cannot  imagine  such  a  thing  as  a  veteran 
Scotch  Commander-in-Chief  comporting  himself  in 
the  field  like  a  windy  melodramatic  actor,  but  Cooper 
could.  On  one  occasion  Alice  and  Cora  were  being 
chased  by  the  French  through  a  fog  in  the  neighbor 
hood  of  their  father's  fort : 

"Point  de  quartier  aux  coquins!"  cried  an  eager  pursuer,  who 
seemed  to  direct  the  operations  of  the  enemy. 

"  Stand  firm  and  be  ready,  my  gallant  6oths!"  suddenly 
exclaimed  a  voice  above  them;  "  wait  to  see  the  enemy;  fire  low, 
and  sweep  the  glacis." 

"  Father!  father."  exclaimed  a  piercing  cry  from  out  the  mist; 
"it  is  I!  Alice!  thy  own  Elsie!  spare,  0!  save  your  daughters!" 

"  Hold!"  shouted  the  former  speaker,  in  the  awful  tones  of 
parental  agony,  the  sound  reaching  even  to  the  woods,  and  rolling 
back  in  solemn  echo.  "  Tis  she!  God  has  restored  me  my 
children!  Throw  open  the  sally-port;  to  the  field,  6oths,  to  the 
field!  pull  not  a  trigger,  lest  ye  kill  my  lambs!  Drive  off  these 
dogs  of  France  with  your  steel!"  Ii 

Cooper's  word-sense  was  singularly  dull.  When  a 
person  has  a  poor  ear  for  music  he  will  flat 
sharp  right  along  without  knowing  it.  He  keeps 
near  the  tune,  but  it  is  not  the  tune.  When  a  person 
has  a  poor  ear  for  words,  the  result  is  a  literary 
flatting  and  sharping ;  you  perceive  what  he  is  intend 
ing  to  say,  but  you  also  perceive  that  he  doesn't 
say  it.  This  is  Cooper.  He  was  not  a  word-musician. 
His  ear  was  satisfied  with  the  approximate  word.  I 
will  furnish  some  circumstantial  evidence  in  support 
of  this  charge.  My  instances  are  gathered  from  half 
a  dozen  pages  of  the  tale  called  Deerslayer.  He  uses 
"verbal"  for  "oral";  "precision"  for  "facility"; 
*' '  phenomena  "  for  "  marvels  " ;  "  necessary ' '  for 


MARK    TWAIN 

"predetermined";  "unsophisticated"  for  "primi 
tive  " ;  ' '  preparation  "  for  '  *  expectancy  " ;  ' '  rebuked ' ' 
for  "subdued";  "dependent  on"  for  "resulting 
from";  "fact"  for  "condition";  "fact"  for  "con 
jecture  " ;  "  precaution  "  for  "  caution  " ;  "  explain  ' ' 
for  ' '  determine  " ;  "  mortified  "  for  "  disappointed  " ; 
"meretricious"  for  "factitious";  "materially"  for 
"considerably";  "decreasing"  for  "deepening"; 
"increasing"  for  "disappearing";  "embedded"  for 
"inclosed";  "treacherous"  for  "hostile";  "stood" 
for  "stooped";  "softened"  for  "replaced";  "re 
joined  *'  for  "  remarked " ;  "  situation  "  for  "  con 
dition";  "different"  for  "differing";  "insensible" 
for  "unsentient";  "brevity"  for  "celerity";  "dis 
trusted  "  for  "  suspicious  " ;  "  mental  imbecility ' ' 
for  "imbecility";  "eyes"  for  "sight";  "counter 
acting"  for  "opposing";  "funeral  obsequies"  for 
"obsequies." 

There  have  been  daring  people  in  the  world  who 
claimed  that  Cooper  could  write  English,  but  they 
are  all  dead  now — all  dead  but  Lounsbury.  I  don't 
remember  that  Lounsbury  makes  the  claim  in  so 
many  words,  still  he  makes  it,  for  he  says  that 
Deer  slayer  is  a  "pure  work  of  art."  Pure,  in  that 
connection,  means  faultless — faultless  in  all  details — 
and  language  is  a  detail.  If  Mr.  Lounsbury  had  only 
compared  Cooper's  English  with  the  English  which 
he  writes  himself — but  it  is  plain  that  he  didn't;  and 
so  it  is  likely  that  he  imagines  until  this  day  that 
Cooper's  is  as  clean  and  compact  as  his  own.  Now 
I  feel  sure,  deep  down  in  my  heart,  that  Cooper 
wrote  about  the  poorest  English  that  exists  in  our 

•• 


COOPER'S    LITERARY    OFFENSES 

language,  and  that  the  English  of  Deerslayer  is  the 
very  worst  that  even  Cooper  ever  wrote. 

I  may  be  mistaken,  but  it  does  seem  to  me  that 
Deerslayer  is  not  a  work  of  art  in  any  sense;  it  does 
seem  to  me  that  it  is  destitute  of  every  detail  that 
goes  to  the  making  of  a  work  of  art;  in  truth,  it 
seems  to  me  that  Deerslayer  is  just  simply  a  literary 
delirium  trcmcns. 

A  work  of  art?  It  has  no  invention;  it  has  no 
order,  system,  sequence,  or  result;  it  has  no  life- 
likeness,  no  thrill,  no  stir,  no  seeming  of  reality;  its 
characters  are  confusedly  drawn,  and  by  their  acts 
and  words  they  prove  that  they  are  not  the  sort  of 
people  the  author  claims  that  they  arc;  its  humor 
is  pathetic;  its  pathos  is  funny;  its  conversations  are 
— oh !  indescribable ;  its  love-scenes  odious ;  its  English 
a  crime  against  the  language. 

Counting  these  out,  what  is  left  is  Art.  I  think 
we  must  all  admit  that. 


TRAVELING  WITH  A  REFORMER 

LAST  spring  I  went  out  to  Chicago  to  see  the 
Fair,  and  although  I  did  not  see  it  my  trip 
was  not  wholly  lost — there  were  compensations.  In 
New  York  I  was  introduced  to  a  major  in  the  regular 
army  who  said  he  was  going  to  the  Fair,  and  we 
agreed  to  go  together.  I  had  to  go  to  Boston  first, 
but  that  did  not  interfere;!  he  said  he  would  go 
along,  and  put  in  the  time.  He  was  a  handsome 
man,  and  built  like  a  gladiator.  But  his  ways  were 
gentle,  and  his  speech  was  soft  and  persuasive.  He 
was  companionable,  but  exceedingly  reposeful.  Yes, 
and  wholly  destitute  of  the  sense  of  humor.  He 
was  full  of  interest  in  everything  that  went  on  around 
him,  but  his  serenity  was  indestructible;  nothing 
disturbed  him,  nothing  excited  him. 

But  before  the  day  was  done  I  found  that  deep 
down  in  him  somewhere  he  had  a  passion,  quiet  as 
he  was — a  passion  for  reforming  petty  public  abuses. 
He  stood  for  citizenship — it  was  his  hobby.  His 
idea  was  that  every  citizen  of  the  republic  ought  to 
consider  himself  an  unofficial  policeman,  and  keep 
unsalaried  watch  and  ward  over  the  laws  and  their 
execution.  He  thought  that  the  only  effective  way 
of  preserving  and  protecting  public  rights  was  for 
each  citizen  to  do  his  share  in  preventing  or  pun- 

78 


TRAVELING  WITH  A  REFORMER 

ishing  such  infringements  of  them  as  came  under 
his  personal  notice. 

It  was  a  good  scheme,  but  I  thought  it  would 
keep  a  body  in  trouble  all  the  time;  it  seemed  to 
me  that  one  would  be  always  trying  to  get  offend 
ing  little  officials  discharged,  and  perhaps  getting 
laughed  at  for  all  reward.  But  he  said  no,  I  had 
the  wrong  idea;  that  there  was  no  occasion  to  get 
anybody  discharged;  that  in  fact  you  mustn't  get 
anybody  discharged;  that  that  would  itself  be  a 
failure;  no,  one  must  reform  the  man — reform  him 
and  make  him  useful  where  he  was. 

"Must  one  report  the  offender  and  then  beg  his 
superior  not  to  discharge  him,  but  reprimand  him 
and  keep  him?" 

"No,  that  is  not  the  idea;  you  don't  report  him 
at  all,  for  then  you  risk  his  bread  and  butter.  You 
can  act  as  if  you  are  going  to  report  him — when 
nothing  else  will  answer.  But  that's  an  extreme 
case.  That  is  a  sort  of  force,  and  force  is  bad. 
Diplomacy  is  the  effective  thing.  Now  if  a  man  has 
tact — if  a  man  will  exercise  diplomacy— 

For  two  minutes  we  had  been  standing  at  a  tele 
graph  wicket,  and  during  all  this  time  the  Major  had 
been  trying  to  get  the  attention  of  one  of  the  young 
operators,  but  they  were  all  busy  skylarking.  The 
Major  spoke  now,  and  asked  one  of  them  to  take 
his  telegram.  He  got  for  reply: 

"I  reckon  you  can  wait  a  minute,  can't  you?" 
and  the  skylarking  went  on. 

The  Major  said  yes,  he  was  not  in  a  hurry.  Then 
he  wrote  another  telegram: 

79 


MARK    TWAIN 

President  Western  Union  Tel.  Co.: 

Come  and  dine  with  me  this  evening.  I  can  tell  you  ho\v 
business  is  conducted  in  one  of  your  branches. 

Presently  the  young  fellow  who  had  spoken  so 
pertly  a  little  before  reached  out  and  took  the  tele 
gram,  and  when  he  read  it  he  lost  color  and  began 
to  apologize  and  explain.  He  said  he  would  lose 
his  place  if  this  deadly  telegram  was  sent,  and  he 
might  never  get  another.  If  he  could  be  let  off  this 
time  he  would  give  no  cause  of  complaint  again. 
The  compromise  was  accepted. 

As  we  walked  away,  the  Major  said: 
"Now,  you  see,  that  was  diplomacy — and  you 
see  how  it  worked.  It  wouldn't  do  any  good  to 
bluster,  the  way  people  are  always  doing — that 
boy  can  always  give  you  as  good  as  you  send,  and 
you'll  come  out  defeated  and  ashamed  of  yourself 
pretty  nearly  always.  But  you  see  he  stands  no 
chance  against  diplomacy.  Gentle  words  and  diplo 
macy — those  are  the  tools  to  work  with." 

"Yes,  I  see;  but  everybody  wouldn't  have  had 
your  opportunity.  It  isn't  everybody  that  is  on 
those  familiar  terms  with  the  president  of  the  West 
ern  Union." 

1 1  Oh,  you  misunderstand.    I  don't  know  the  presi 
dent — I  only  used  him  diplomatically.     It  is  for  his 
good  and  for  the  public  good.    There's  no  harm  in  it. " 
I  said,  with  hesitation  and  diffidence: 
"But  is  it  ever  right  or  noble  to  tell  a  lie?" 
He  took  no  note  of  the  delicate  self -righteous 
ness  of  the  question,  but  answered,  with  undisturbed 
gravity  and  simplicity: 

80 


TRAVELING  WITH  A  REFORMER 

"Yes,  sometimes.  Lies  told  to  injure  a  person, 
and  lies  told  to  profit  yourself  are  not  justifiable,  but 
lies  told  to  help  another  person,  and  lies  told  in 
the  public  interest — oh,  well,  that  is  quite  another 
matter.  Anybody  knows  that.  But  never  mind 
about  the  methods :  you  see  the  result.  That  youth 
is  going  to  be  useful  now,  and  well  behaved.  He 
had  a  good  face.  He  was  worth  saving.  Why,  he 
was  worth  saving  on  his  mother's  account  if  not  his 
own.  Of  course,  he  has  a  mother — sisters,  too. 
Damn  those  people  who  are  always  forgetting  that ! 
Do  you  know,  I've  never  fought  a  duel  in  my  life — 
never  once — and  yet  have  been  challenged,  like 
other  people.  I  could  always  see  the  other  man's 
unoffending  women  folks  or  his  little  children  stand 
ing  between  him  and  me.  They  hadn't  done  any 
thing — I  couldn't  break  their  hearts,  you  know." 

He  corrected  a  good  many  little  abuses  in  the 
course  of  the  day,  and  always  without  friction— 
always  with  a  fine  and  dainty  ''diplomacy"  which 
left  no  sting  behind ;  and  he  got  such  happiness  and 
such  contentment  out  of  these  performances  that  I 
was  obliged  to  envy  him  his  trade — and  perhaps 
would  have  adopted  it  if  I  could  have  managed  the 
necessary  deflections  from  fact  as  confidently  with 
my  mouth  as  I  believe  I  could  with  a  pen,  behind 
the  shelter  of  print,  after  a  little  practice. 

Away  late  that  night  we  were  coming  up- town  in 
a  horse-car  when  three  boisterous  roughs  got  aboard, 
and  began  to  fling  hilarious  obscenities  and  pro 
fanities  right  and  left  among  the  timid  passengers, 
some  of  whom  were  women  and  children.  Nobody 

81 


MARK    TWAIN 

resisted  or  retorted;  the  conductor  tried  soothing 
words  and  moral  suasion,  but  the  roughs  only  called 
him  names  and  laughed  at  him.  Very  soon  I  saw 
that  the  Major  realized  that  this  was  a  matter  which 
was  in  his  line;  evidently  he  was  turning  over  his 
stock  of  diplomacy  in  his  mind  and  getting  ready. 
I  felt  that  the  first  diplomatic  remark  he  made  in 
this  place  would  bring  down  a  landslide  of  ridicule 
upon  him  and  maybe  something  worse;  but  before 
I  could  whisper  to  him  and  check  him  he  had  begun, 
and  it  was  too  late.  He  said,  in  a  level  and  dispas 
sionate  tone : 

"Conductor,  you  must  put  these  swine  out.  I 
will  help  you." 

I  was  not  looking  for  that.  In  a  flash  the  three 
roughs  plunged  at  him.  But  none  of  them  arrived. 
He  delivered  three  such  blows  as  one  could  not  ex 
pect  to  encounter  outside  the  prize-ring,  and  neither 
of  the  men  had  life  enough  left  in  him  to  get  up  from 
where  he  fell.  The  Major  dragged  them  out  and 
threw  them  off  the  car,  and  we  got  under  way  again. 

I  was  astonished;  astonished  to  see  a  lamb  act 
so;  astonished  at  the  strength  displayed,  and  the 
clean  and  comprehensive  result;  astonished  at  the 
brisk  and  business-like  style  of  the  whole  thing. 
The  situation  had  a  humorous  side  to  it,  considering 
how  much  I  had  been  hearing  about  mild  persuasion 
and  gentle  diplomacy  all  day  from  this  pile-driver, 
and  I  would  have  liked  to  call  his  attention  to  that 
feature  and  do  some  sarcasms  about  it;  but  when  I 
looked  at  him  I  saw  that  it  would  be  of  no  use— his 
placid  and  contented  face  had  no  ray  of  humor  in 

82 


TRAVELING  WITH  A  REFORMER 

it;   he  would  not  have  understood.     When  we  left 
the  car,  I  said: 

"That  was  a  good  stroke  of  diplomacy — three 
good  strokes  of  diplomacy,  in  fact." 

" 'That?  That  wasn't  diplomacy.  You  are  quite 
in  the  wrong.  Diplomacy  is  a  wholly  different  thing. 
One  cannot  apply  it  to  that  sort;  they  would  not 
understand  it.  No,  that  was  not  diplomacy ;  it  was 
force." 

"Now  that  you  mention  it,  I — yes,  I  think  per 
haps  you  are  right." 

"Right?  Of  course  I  am  right.   It  was  just  force." 

"I  think,  myself,  it  had  the  outside  aspect  of  it. 
Do  you  often  have  to  reform  people  in  that  way?" 

"Far  from  it.  It  hardly  ever  happens.  Not 
oftener  than  once  in  half  a  year,  at  the  outside./ 

"Those  men  will  get  well?" 

"Get  well?  Why,  certainly  they  will.  They  are 
not  in  any  danger.  I  know  how  to  hit  and  where  to 
hit.  You  noticed  that  I  did  not  hit  them  under  the 
jaw.  That  would  have  killed  them." 

I  believed  that.  I  remarked — rather  wittily,  as  I 
thought — that  he  had  been  a  lamb  all  day,  but  now 
had  all  of  a  sudden  developed  into  a  ram — batter 
ing-ram;  but  with  dulcet  frankness  and  simplicity 
he  said  no,  a  battering-ram  was  quite  a  different 
thing  and  not  in  use  now.  This  was  maddening, 
and  I  came  near  bursting  out  and  saying  he  had  no 
more  appreciation  of  wit  than  a  jackass — in  fact,  I 
had  it  right  on  my  tongue,  but  did  not  say  it,  know 
ing  there  was  no  hurry  and  I  could  say  it  just  as 
well  some  other  time  over  the  telephone. 

83 


MARK    TWAIN 

We  started  to  Boston  the  next  afternoon.  The 
smoking-compartment  in  the  parlor-car  was  full,  and 
we  went  into  the  regular  smoker.  Across  the  aisle 
in  the  front  seat  sat  a  meek,  farmer-looking  old  man 
with  a  sickly  pallor  in  his  face,  and  he  was  holding 
the  door  open  with  his  foot  to  get  the  air.  Presently 
a  big  brakeman  came  rushing  through,  and  when 
he  got  to  the  door  he  stopped,  gave  the  farmer 
an  ugly  scowl,  then  wrenched  the  door  to  with  such 
energy  as  to  almost  snatch  the  old  man's  boot  off. 
Then  on  he  plunged  about  his  business.  Several 
passengers  laughed,  and  the  old  gentleman  looked 
pathetically  shamed  and  grieved. 

After  a  little  the  conductor  passed  along,  and  the 
Major  stopped  him  and  asked  him  a  question  in  his 
habitually  courteous  way: 

Conductor,  where  does  one  report  the  misconduct 
of  a  brakeman?     Does  one  report  to  you?" 

"You  can  report  him  at  New  Haven  if  you  want 
to.  What  has  he  been  doing?" 

The  Major  told  the  story.  The  conductor  seemed 
amused.  He  said,  with  just  a  touch  of  sarcasm  in 
his  bland  tones: 

"As  I  understand  you,  the  brakeman  didn't  say 
anything. ' ' 

"No,  he  didn't  say  anything." 

"But  he  scowled,  you  say." 

"Yes." 

"And  snatched  the  door  loose  in  a  rough  way." 

"Yes." 

"That's  the  whole  business,  is  it?" 

"Yes,  that  is  the  whole  of  it." 

84 


TRAVELING  WITH  A  REFORMER 

The  conductor  smiled  pleasantly,  and  said : 

"Well,  if  you  want  to  report  him,  all  right,  but  I 
don't  quite  make  out  what  it's  going  to  amount  to. 
You'll  say — as  I  understand  you — that  the  brake- 
man  insulted  this  old  gentleman.  They'll  ask  you 
what  he  said.  You'll  say  he  didn't  say  anything  at 
all.  I  reckon  they'll  say,  how  are  you  going  to 
make  out  an  insult  when  you  acknowledge  yourself 
that  he  didn't  say  a  word." 

There  was  a  murmur  of  applause  at  the  conduc 
tor's  compact  reasoning,  and  it  gave  him  pleasure— 
you  could  see  it  in  his  face.  But  the  Major  was  not 
disturbed.  He  said: 

"There — now  you  have  touched  upon  a  crying 
defect  in  the  complaint  system.  The  railway  offi 
cials — as  the  public  think  and  as  you  also  seem  to 
think — are  not  aware  that  there  are  any  kind  of 
insults  except  spoken  ones.  So  nobody  goes  to 
headquarters  and  reports  insults  of  manner,  insults 
of  gesture,  look,  and  so  forth;  and  yet  these  are 
sometimes  harder  to  bear  than  any  words.  They 
are  bitter  hard  to  bear  because  there  is  nothing 
tangible  to  take  hold  of;  and  the  insulter  can  always 
say,  if  called  before  the  railway  officials,  that  he 
never  dreamed  of  intending  any  offense.  It  seems  to 
me  that  the  officials  ought  to  specially  and  urgently 
request  the  public  to  report  unworded  affronts  and 
incivilities." 

The  conductor  laughed,  and  said : 

"Well,  that  would  be  trimming  it  pretty  fine, 
sure!" 

'  *  But  not  too  fine,  I  think.  I  will  report  this 

S5 


MARK     TWAIN 

matter  at  New  Haven,  and  I  have  an  idea  that  I'll 
be  thanked  for  it." 

The  conductor's  face  lost  something  of  its  com 
placency;  in  fact,  it  settled  to  a  quite  sober  cast  as 
the  owner  of  it  moved  away.  I  said: 

"You  are  not  really  going  to  bother  with  that 
trifle,  are  you?" 

1 '  It  isn't  a  trifle.  Such  things  ought  always  to  be  re 
ported.  It  is  a  public  duty,  and  no  citizen  has  a  right 
to  shirk  it.  But  I  sha'n't  have  to  report  this  case." 

"Why?" 

"It  won't  be  necessary.  Diplomacy  will  do  the 
business.  You'll  see." 

Presently  the  conductor  came  on  his  rounds  again, 
and  when  he  reached  the  Major  he  leaned  over  and 
said: 

"That's  all  right.  You  needn't  report  him.  He's 
responsible  to  me,  and  if  he  does  it  again  I'll  give 
him  a  talking  to." 

The  Major's  response  was  cordial: 

"Now  that  is  what  I  like!  You  mustn't  think 
that  I  was  moved  by  any  vengeful  spirit,  for  that 
wasn't  the  case.  It  was  duty — just  a  sense  of  duty, 
that  was  all.  My  brother-in-law  is  one  of  the 
directors  of  the  road,  and  when  he  learns  that  you 
are  going  to  reason  with  your  brakeman  the  very  next 
time  he  brutally  insults  an  unoffending  old  man  it 
will  please  him,  you  may  be  sure  of  that." 

The  conductor  did  not  look  as  joyous  as  one  might 
have  thought  he  would,  but  on  the  contrary  looked 
sickly  and  uncomfortable.  He  stood  around  a  little; 

then  said: 

86 


TRAVELING  WITH  A  REFORMER 

"I  think  something  ought  to  be  done  to  him 
now.  I'll  discharge  him." 

"Discharge  him?  What  good  would  that  do? 
Don't  you  think  it  would  be  better  wisdom  to  teach 
him  better  ways  and  keep  him?" 

"Well,  there's  something  in  that.  What  would 
you  suggest?" 

"He  insulted  the  old  gentleman  in  presence  of  all 
these  people.  How  would  it  do  to  have  him  come 
and  apologize  in  their  presence?" 

"I'll  have  him  here  right  off.  And  I  want  to  say 
this:  If  people  would  do  as  you've  done,  and  re 
port  such  things  to  me  instead  of  keeping  mum  and 
going  off  and  blackguarding  the  road,  you'd  see  a 
different  state  of  things  pretty  soon.  I'm  much 
obliged  to  you." 

The  brakeman  came  and  apologized.  After  he 
was  gone  the  Major  said: 

"Now,  you  see  how  simple  and  easy  that  was. 
The  ordinary  citizen  would  have  accomplished  noth 
ing — the  brother-in-law  of  a  director  can  accomplish 
anything  he  wants  to." 

1 '  But  are  you  really  the  brother-in-law  of  a  director  ?" 

"Always.  Always  when  the  public  interests  re 
quire  it.  I  have  a  brother-in-law  on  all  the  boards 
— everywhere.  It  saves,  me  a  world  of  trouble." 

"It  is  a  good  wide  relationship." 

"Yes.     I  have  over  three  hundred  of  them." 

"Is  the  relationship  never  doubted  by  a  con 
ductor?" 

"I  have  never  met  with  a  case.  It  is  the  honest 
truth — I  never  have." 


MARK    TWAIN 

"Why  didn't  you  let  him  go  ahead  and  discharge 
the  brakeman,  in  spite  of  your  favorite  policy  ?  You 
know  he  deserved  it." 

The  Major  answered  with  some  tiling  which  really 
had  a  sort  of  distant  resemblance  to  impatience: 

"If  you  would  stop  and  think  a  moment  you 
wouldn't  ask  such  a  question  as  that.  Is  a  brake 
man  a  dog,  that  nothing  but  dog's  methods  will  do 
for  him?  He  is  a  man,  and  has  a  man's  fight  for 
life.  And  he  always  has  a  sister,  or  a  mother,  or 
wife  and  children  to  support.  Always — there  are 
no  exceptions.  When  you  take  his  living  away  from 
him  you  take  theirs  away  too — and  what  have  they 
done  to  you?  Nothing.  And  where  is  the  profit  in 
discharging  an  uncourteous  brakeman  and  hiring 
another  just  like  him?  It's  unwisdom.  Don't  you 
see  that  the  rational  thing  to  do  is  to  reform  the 
brakeman  and  keep  him?  Of  course  it  is." 

Then  he  quoted  with  admiration  the  conduct  of  a 
certain  division  superintendent  of  the  Consolidated 
road,  in  a  case  where  a  switchman  of  two  years' 
experience  was  negligent  once  and  threw  a  train  off 
the  track  and  killed  several  people.  Citizens  came 
in  a  passion  to  urge  the  man's  dismissal,  but  the 
superintendent  said: 

"No,  you  are  wrong.  He  has  learned  his  lesson, 
he  will  throw  no  more  trains  off  the  track.  He  is 
twice  as  valuable  as  he  was  before.  I  shall  keep 
him." 

We  had  only  one  more  adventure  on  the  trip.  Be 
tween  Hartford  and  Springfield  the  train-boy  came 
shouting  in  with  an  armful  of  literature  and  dropped 

88 


TRAVELING  WITH  A  REFORMER 

a  sample  into  a  slumbering  gentleman's  lap,  and  the 
man  woke  up  with  a  start.  He  was  very  angry,  and 
he  and  a  couple  of  friends  discussed  the  outrage 
with  much  heat.  They  sent  for  the  parlor-car  con 
ductor  and  described  the  matter,  and  were  deter 
mined  to  have  the  boy  expelled  from  his  situation. 
The  three  complainants  were  wealthy  Holyoke  mer 
chants,  and  it  was  evident  that  the  conductor  stood 
in  some  awe  of  them.  He  tried  to  pacify  them, 
and  explained  that  the  boy  was  not  under  his 
authority,  but  under  that  of  one  of  the  news  com 
panies;  but  he  accomplished  nothing. 

Then  the  Major  volunteered  some  testimony  for 
the  defense.  He  said : 

"I  saw  it  all.  You  gentlemen  have  not  meant  to 
exaggerate  the  circumstances,  but  still  that  is  what 
you  have  done.  The  boy  has  done  nothing  more 
than  all  train-boys  do.  If  you  want  to  get  his  ways 
softened  down  and  his  manners  reformed,  I  am  with 
you  and  ready  to  help,  but  it  isn't  fair  to  get  him 
discharged  without  giving  him  a  chance." 

But  they  were  angry,  and  would  hear  of  no  com 
promise.  They  were  well  acquainted  with  the  presi 
dent  of  the  Boston  &  Albany,  they  said,  and  would 
put  everything  aside  next  day  and  go  up  to  Boston 
and  fix  that  boy. 

The  Major  said  he  would  be  on  hand  too,  and 
would  do  what  he  could  to  save  the  boy.  One  of 
the  gentlemen  looked  him  over,  and  said : 

"Apparently  it  is  going  to  be  a  matter  of  who 
can  wield  the  most  influence  with  the  president,     Do 
you  know  Mr.  Bliss  personally?" 
7  89 


MARK     TWAIN 

The  Major  said,  with  composure: 

"Yes;   he  is  my  uncle." 

The  effect  was  satisfactory.  There  was  an  awk 
ward  silence  for  a  minute  or  more;  then  the  hedg 
ing  and  the  half-confessions  of  overhaste  and  ex 
aggerated  resentment  began,  and  soon  everything 
was  smooth  and  friendly  and  sociable,  and  it  was 
resolved  to  drop  the  matter  and  leave  the  boy's 
bread-and-butter  unmolested. 

It  turned  out  as  I  had  expected:  the  president 
of  the  road  was  not  the  Major's  uncle  at  all— 
except  by  adoption,  and  for  this  day  and  train 
only. 

We  got  into  no  episodes  on  the  return  journey. 
Probably  it  was  because  we  took  a  night  train  and 
slept  all  the  way. 

We  left  New  York  Saturday  night  by  the  Pennsyl 
vania  road.  After  breakfast  the  next  morning  we 
went  into  the  parlor-car,  but  found  it  a  dull  place 
and  dreary.  There  were  but  few  people  in  it  and 
nothing  going  on.  Then  we  went  into  the  little 
smoking-compartment  of  the  same  car  and  found 
three  gentlemen  in  there.  Two  of  them  were  grum 
bling  over  one  of  the  rules  of  the  road — a  rule  which 
forbade  card-playing  on  the  trains  on  Sunday.  They 
had  started  an  innocent  game  of  high-low-jack 
and  been  stopped.  The  Major  was  interested.  He 
said  to  the  third  gentleman: 

"Did  you  object  to  the  game?" 

"Not  at  all.  I  am  a  Yale  professor  and  a  relig 
ious  man,  but  my  prejudices  are  not  extensive." 

Then  the  Major  said  to  the  others: 

90 


TRAVELING  WITH  A  REFORMER 

4 'You  are  at  perfect  liberty  to  resume  your  game, 
gentlemen ;  no  one  here  objects." 

One  of  them  declined  the  risk,  but  the  other  one 
said  he  would  like  to  begin  again  if  the  Major  would 
join  him.  So  they  spread  an  overcoat  over  their 
knees  and  the  game  proceeded.  Pretty  soon  the 
parlor-car  conductor  arrived,  and  said  brusquely : 

"There,  there,  gentlemen,  that  won't  do.  Put  up 
the  cards — it's  not  allowed." 

The  Major  was  shuffling.  He  continued  to  shuffle, 
and  said : 

"By  whose  order  is  it  forbidden?" 

"It's  my  order.     I  forbid  it." 

The  dealing  began.     The  Major  asked : 

"Did  you  invent  the  idea?" 

"What  idea?" 

"The  idea  of  forbidding  card-playing  on  Sunday." 

"No — of  course  not." 

"Who  did?" 

"The  company." 

"Then  it  isn't  your  order,  after  all,  but  the  com 
pany's.  Is  that  it?" 

"Yes.  But  you  don't  stop  playing;  I  have  to  re 
quire  you  to  stop  playing  immediately." 

"Nothing  is  gained  by  hurry,  and  often  much  is 
lost.  Who  authorized  the  company  to  issue  such  an 
order?" 

"My  dear  sir,  that  is  a  matter  of  no  consequence 
to  me,  and— 

"But  you  forget  that  you  are  not  the  only  person 
concerned.  It  may  be  a  matter  of  consequence  to 
me.  It  is  indeed  a  matter  of  very  great  importance 


MARK    TWAIN 

to  me.  I  cannot  violate  a  legal  requirement  of  my 
country  without  dishonoring  myself;  I  cannot  allow 
any  man  or  corporation  to  hamper  my  liberties  with 
illegal  rules — a  thing  which  railway  companies  are 
always  trying  to  do  —  without  dishonoring  my 
citizenship.  So  I  come  back  to  that  question:  By 
whose  authority  has  the  company  issued  this  order?" 

"I  don't  know.     That's  their  affair." 

*  *  Mine,  too.  I  doubt  if  the  company  has  any  right 
to  issue  such  a  rule.  This  road  runs  through  several 
states.  Do  you  know  what  state  we  are  in  now,  and 
what  its  laws  are  in  matters  of  this  kind?" 

"Its  laws  do  not  concern  me,  but  the  company's 
orders  do.  It  is  my  duty  to  stop  this  game,  gentle 
men,  and  it  must  be  stopped." 

"Possibly;  but  still  there  is  no  hurry.  In  hotels 
they  post  certain  rules  in  the  rooms,  but  they  always 
quote  passages  from  the  state  laws  as  authority  for 
these  requirements.  I  see  nothing  posted  here  of 
this  sort.  Please  produce  your  authority  and  let  us 
arrive  at  a  decision,  for  you  see  yourself  that  you 
are  marring  the  game." 

"I  have  nothing  of  the  kind,  but  I  have  my 
orders,  and  that  is  sufficient.  They  must  be  obeyed. ' ' 

"Let  us  not  jump  to  conclusions.  It  will  be  bet 
ter  all  around  to  examine  into  the  matter  without 
heat  or  haste,  and  see  just  where  we  stand  before 
either  of  us  makes  a  mistake — for  the  curtailing  of 
the  liberties  of  a  citizen  of  the  United  States  is  a 
much  more  serious  matter  than  you  and  the  railroads 
seem  to  think,  and  it  cannot  be  done  in  my  person 
until  the  curtailer  proves  his  right  to  do  so.  Now — " 

92 


TRAVELING  WITH  A  REFORMER 

"My  dear  sir,  will  you  put  down  those  cards?" 

"All  in  good  time,  perhaps.  It  depends.  You  say 
this  order  must  be  obeyed.  Must.  It  is  a  strong 
word.  You  see  yourself  how  strong  it  is.  A  wise 
company  would  not  arm  you  with  so  drastic  an 
order  as  this,  of  course,  without  appointing  a  penalty 
for  its  infringement.  Otherwise  it  runs  the  risk  of 
being  a  dead  letter  and  a  thing  to  laugh  at.  What 
is  the  appointed  penalty  for  an  infringement  of  this 
law?" 

"Penalty?     I  never  heard  of  any.'* 

* '  Unquestionably  you  must  be  mistaken.  Your 
company  orders  you  to  come  here  and  rudely  break 
up  an  innocent  amusement,  and  furnishes  you  no 
way  to  enforce  the  order?  Don't  you  see  that  that 
is  nonsense?  What  do  you  do  when  people  refuse 
to  obey  this  order?  Do  you  take  the  cards  away 
from  them?" 

"No." 

"Do  you  put  the  offender  off  at  the  next  station?" 

"Well,  no — of  course  we  couldn't  if  he  had  a 
ticket." 

"Do  you  have  him  up  before  a  court?" 

The  conductor  was  silent  and  apparently  troubled. 
The  Major  started  a  new  deal,  and  said: 

"You  see  that  you  are  helpless,  and  that  the  com 
pany  has  placed  you  in  a  foolish  position.  You  are 
furnished  with  an  arrogant  order,  and  you  deliver 
it  in  a  blustering  way,  and  when  you  come  to  look 
into  the  matter  you  find  you  haven't  any  way  of 
enforcing  obedience." 

The  conductor  said,  with  chill  dignity: 

93 


MARK    TWAIN 

"Gentlemen,  you  have  heard  the  order,  and  my 
duty  is  ended.  As  to  obeying  it  or  not,  you  will  do 
as  you  think  fit."  And  he  turned  to  leave. 

"But  wait.  The  matter  is  not  yet  finished.  I 
think  you  are  mistaken  about  your  duty  being 
ended;  but  if  it  really  is,  I  myself  have  a  duty  to 
perform  yet." 

"How  do  you  mean?" 

"Are  you  going  to  report  my  disobedience  at 
headquarters  in  Pittsburg?" 

' '  No.     What  good  would  that  do  ?" 

"You  must  report  me,  or  I  will  report  you." 

"Report  me  for  what?" 

"For  disobeying  the  company's  orders  in  not 
stopping  this  game.  As  a  citizen  it  is  my  duty  to 
help  the  railway  companies  keep  their  servants  to 
their  work." 

"Are  you  in  earnest?" 

"Yes,  I  am  in  earnest.  I  have  nothing  against 
you  as  a  man,  but  I  have  this  against  you  as  an 
officer — that  you  have  not  carried  out  that  order, 
and  if  you  do  not  report  me  I  must  report  you. 
And  I  will." 

The  conductor  looked  puzzled,  and  was  thoughtful 
a  moment;  then  he  burst  out  with: 

"I  seem  to  be  getting  myself  into  a  scrape!  It's 
all  a  muddle;  I  can't  make  head  or  tail  of  it;  it's 
never  happened  before;  they  always  knocked  under 
and  never  said  a  word,  and  so  I  never  saw  how 
ridiculous  that  stupid  order  with  no  penalty  is.  I 
don't  want  to  report  anybody,  and  I  don't  want  to 
be  reported — why,  it  might  do  me  no  end  of  harm! 

94 


TRAVELING  WITH  A  REFORMER 

Now  do  go  on  with  the  game — play  the  whole  day 
if  you  want  to — and  don't  let's  have  any  more  trou 
ble  about  it!" 

"No,  I  only  sat  down  here  to  establish  this  gen 
tleman's  rights — he  can  have  his  place  now.  But 
before  you  go  won't  you  tell  me  what  you  think 
the  company  made  this  rule  for?  Can  you  imagine 
an  excuse  for  it?  I  mean  a  rational  one — an  ex 
cuse  that  is  not  on  its  face  silly,  and  the  invention  of 
an  idiot?" 

"Why,  surely  I  can.  The  reason  it  was  made  is 
plain  enough.  It  is  to  save  the  feelings  of  the  other 
passengers — the  religious  ones  among  them,  I  mean. 
They  would  not  like  it,  to  have  the  Sabbath  dese 
crated  by  card-playing  on  the  train." 

"I  just  thought  as  much.  They  are  willing  to 
desecrate  it  themselves  by  traveling  on  Sunday,  but 
they  are  not  willing  that  other  people— 

"By  gracious,  you've  hit  it!  I  never  thought  of 
that  before.  The  fact  is,  it  is  a  silly  rule  when  you 
come  to  look  into  it." 

At  this  point  the  train-conductor  arrived,  and  was 
going  to  shut  down  the  game  in  a  very  high-handed 
fashion,  but  the  parlor-car  conductor  stopped  him 
and  took  him  aside  to  explain.  Nothing  more  was 
heard  of  the  matter. 

I  was  ill  in  bed  eleven  days  in  Chicago  and  got  no 
glimpse  of  the  Fair,  for  I  was  obliged  to  return  east 
as  soon  as  I  was  able  to  travel.  The  Major  secured 
and  paid  for  a  stateroom  in  a  sleeper  the  day  before 
we  left,  so  that  I  could  have  plenty  of  room  and  be 
comfortable;  but  when  we  arrived  at  the  station  a 

95 


MARK    TWAIN 

mistake  had  been  made  and  our  car  had  not  been 
put  on.  The  conductor  had  reserved  a  section  for 
us — it  was  the  best  he  could  do,  he  said.  But  the 
Major  said  we  were  not  in  a  hurry,  and  would  wait 
for  the  car  to  be  put  on.  The  conductor  responded, 
with  pleasant  irony: 

"It  may  be  that  you  are  not  in  a  hurry,  just  as 
you  say,  but  we  are.  Come,  get  aboard,  gentle 
men,  get  aboard — don't  keep  us  waiting." 

But  the  Major  would  not  get  aboard  himself  nor 
allow  me  to  do  it.  He  wanted  his  car,  and  said  he 
must  have  it.  This  made  the  hurried  and  perspiring 
conductor  impatient,  and  he  said: 

"It's  the  best  we  can  do — we  can't  do  impossi 
bilities.  You  will  take  the  section  or  go  without. 
A  mistake  has  been  made  and  can't  be  rectified  at 
this  late  hour.  It's  a  thing  that  happens  now  and 
then,  and  there  is  nothing  for  it  but  to  put  up 
with  it  and  make  the  best  of  it.  Other  peo 
ple  do." 

"Ah,  that  is  just  it,  you  see.  If  they  had  stuck 
to  their  rights  and  enforced  them  you  wouldn't  be 
trying  to  trample  mine  under  foot  in  this  bland  way 
now.  I  haven't  any  disposition  to  give  you  unneces 
sary  trouble,  but  it  is  my  duty  to  protect  the  next 
man  from  this  kind  of  imposition.  So  I  must  have 
my  car.  Otherwise  I  will  wait  in  Chicago  and  sue 
the  company  for  violating  its  contract." 

"Sue  the  company? — for  a  thing  like  that!" 

"Certainly." 

"Do  you  really  mean  that?" 

"Indeed,  I  do." 


TRAVELING  WITH  A  REFORMER 

The  conductor  looked  the  Major  over  wonder- 
ingly,  and  then  said : 

"It  beats  me — it's  bran-new — I've  never  struck 
the  mate  to  it  before.  But  I  swear  I  think  you'd 
do  it.  Look  here,  I'll  send  for  the  station-mas 
ter." 

When  the  station-master  came  he  was  a  good  deal 
annoyed — at  the  Major,  not  at  the  person  who  had 
made  the  mistake.  He  was  rather  brusque,  and 
took  the  same  position  which  the  conductor  had 
taken  in  the  beginning;  but  he  failed  to  move  the 
soft-spoken  artilleryman,  who  still  insisted  that  he 
must  have  his  car.  However,  it  was  plain  that  there 
was  only  one  strong  side  in  this  case,  and  that  that 
side  was  the  Major's.  The  station-master  banished 
his  annoyed  manner,  and  became  pleasant  and  even 
half  apologetic.  This  made  a  good  opening  for  a 
compromise,  and  the  Major  made  a  concession.  He 
said  he  would  give  up  the  engaged  stateroom,  but 
he  must  have  a  stateroom.  After  a  deal  of  ransack 
ing,  one  was  found  whose  owner  was  persuadable; 
he  exchanged  it  for  our  section,  and  we  got  away  at 
last.  The  conductor  called  on  us  in  the  evening,  and 
was  kind  and  courteous  and  obliging,  and  we  had 
a  long  talk  and  got  to  be  good  friends.  He  said  he 
wished  the  public  would  make  trouble  oftener— 
it  would  have  a  good  effect.  He  said  that  the  rail 
roads  could  not  be  expected  to  do  their  whole  duty  by 
the  traveler  unless  the  traveler  would  take  some 
interest  in  the  matter  himself. 

I  hoped  that  we  were  done  reforming  for  the  trip 
flow,  but  it  was  not  so.  In  the  hotel-car,  in 

97 


MARK     TWAIN 

morning,  the  Major  called  for  broiled  chicken.  The 
waiter  said: 

"It's  not  in  the  bill  of  fare,  sir;  we  do  not  serve 
anything  but  what  is  in  the  bill." 

"That  gentleman  yonder  is  eating  a  broiled 
chicken." 

"Yes,  but  that  is  different.  He  is  one  of  the 
superintendents  of  the  road." 

"Then  all  the  more  must  I  have  broiled  chicken. 
I  do  not  like  these  discriminations.  Please  hurry — 
bring  me  a  broiled  chicken." 

The  waiter  brought  the  steward,  who  explained 
in  a  low  and  polite  voice  that  the  thing  was  impos 
sible — it  was  against  the  rule,  and  the  rule  was  rigid. 

"Very  well,  then,  you  must  either  apply  it  im 
partially  or  break  it  impartially.  You  must  take 
that  gentleman's  chicken  away  from  him  or  bring 
me  one." 

The  steward  was  puzzled,  and  did  not  quite  know 
what  to  do.  He  began  an  incoherent  argument, 
but  the  conductor  came  along  just  then,  and  asked 
what  the  difficulty  was.  The  steward  explained  that 
here  was  a  gentleman  who  was  insisting  on  having  a 
chicken  when  it  was  dead  against  the  rule  and  not  in 
the  bill.  The  conductor  said: 

"Stick  by  your  rules — you  haven't  any  option. 
Wait  a  moment — is  this  the  gentleman?"  Then  he 
laughed  and  said:  "Never  mind  your  rules — it's  my 
advice,  and  sound;  give  him  anything  he  wants— 
don't  get  him  started  on  his  rights.  Give  him  what 
ever  he  asks  for;  and  if  you  haven't  got  it,  stop 
the  train  and  get  it." 


TRAVELING  WITH  A  REFORMER 

The  Major  ate  the  chicken,  but  said  he  did  it  from 
a  sense  of  duty  and  to  establish  a  principle,  for  he 
did  not  like  chicken. 

I  missed  the  Fair,  it  is  true,  but  I  picked  up 
some  diplomatic  tricks  which  I  and  the  reader  may 
find  handy  and  useful  as  we  go  along. 


PRIVATE    HISTORY    OF    THE 
"JUMPING    FROG"    STORY 

FIVE  or  six  years  ago  a  lady  from  Finland  asked 
me  to  tell  her  a  story  in  our  negro  dialect,  so 
that  she  could  get  an  idea  of  what  that  variety  of 
speech  was  like.  I  told  her  one  of  Hopkinson  Smith's 
negro  stories,  and  gave  her  a  copy  of  Harper's 
Monthly  containing  it.  She  translated  it  for  a 
Swedish  newspaper,  but  by  an  oversight  named  me 
as  the  author  of  it  instead  of  Smith.  I  was  very 
sorry  for  that,  because  I  got  a  good  lashing  in  the 
Swedish  press,  which  would  have  fallen  to  his  share 
but  for  that  mistake ;  for  it  was  shown  that  Boccaccio 
had  told  that  very  story,  in  his  curt  and  meager 
fashion,  five  hundred  years  before  Smith  took  hold 
of  it  and  made  a  good  and  tellable  thing  out  of  it. 

I  have  always  been  sorry  for  Smith.  Btit  my  own 
turn  has  come  now. .'  A  few  weeks  ago  Professor  Van 
Dyke,  of  Princeton,  asked  this  question: 

' '  Do  you  know  how  old  your  Jumping  Frog  story  is  ? " 

And  I  answered: 

"Yes — forty-five  years.  The'  thing  happened  in 
Calaveras  County  in  the  spring  of  1849." 

"No;  it  happened  earlier — a  couple  of  thousand 
years  earlier;  it  is  a  Greek  story." 

I  was  astonished — and  hurt.     I  said: 

100 


THE     "JUMPING     FROG' 

"I  am  willing  to  be  a  literary  thief  if  it  has  been 
so  ordained;  I  am  even  willing  to  be  caught  robbing 
the  ancient  dead  alongside  of  Hopkinson  Smith,  for 
he  is  my  friend  and  a  good  fellow,  and  I  think  would 
be  as  honest  as  any  one  if  he  could  do  it  without 
occasioning  remark;  but  I  am  not  willing  to  ante 
date  his  crimes  by  fifteen  hundred  years.  I  must 
ask  you  to  knock  off  part  of  that." 

But  the  professor  was  not  chaffing;  he  was  in 
earnest,  and  could  not  abate  a  century.  He  named 
the  Greek  author,  and  offered  to  get  the  book  and 
send  it  to  me  and  the  college  text-book  containing 
the  English  translation  also.  I  thought  I  would  like 
the  translation  best,  because  Greek  makes  me  tired. 
January  3oth  he  sent  me  the  English  version,  and  I 
will  presently  insert  it  in  this  article.  It  is  my 
Jumping  Frog  tale  in  every  essential.  It  is  not 
strung  out  as  I  have  strung  it  out,  but  it  is  all  there. 

To  me  this  is  very  curious  and  interesting.  Curi 
ous  for  several  reasons.  For  instance: 

I  heard  the  story  told  by  a  man  who  was  not  tell 
ing  it  to  his  hearers  as  a  thing  new  to  them,  but 
as  a  thing  which  they  had  witnessed  and  would  re 
member.  He  was  a  dull  person,  and  ignorant;  he 
had  no  gift  as  a  story-teller,  and  no  invention;  in 
his  mouth  this  episode  was  merely  history — history 
and  statistics;  and  the  gravest  sort  of  history,  too; 
he  was  entirely  serious,  for  he  was  dealing  with  what 
to  him  were  austere  facts,  and  they  interested  him 
solely  because  they  were  facts;  he  was  drawing  on 
his  memory,  not  his  mind;  he  saw  no  humor  in  his 
tale,  neither  did  his  listeners;  neither  he  nor  they 


TWAIN 


ever  smiled  or  laughed;  in  my  time  I  have  not 
attended  a  more  solemn  conference.  To  him  and 
to  his  fellow  gold-miners  there  were  just  two  things 
in  the  story  that  were  worth  considering.  One  was 
the  smartness  of  the  stranger  in  taking  in  its  hero, 
Jim  Smiley,  with  a  loaded  frog;  and  the  other  was 
the  stranger's  deep  knowledge  of  a  frog's  nature— 
for  he  knew  (as  the  narrator  asserted  and  the  lis 
teners  conceded)  that  a  frog  likes  shot  and  is  always 
ready  to  eat  it.  Those  men  discussed  those  two 
points,  and  those  only.  They  were  hearty  in  their 
admiration  of  them,  and  none  of  the  party  was 
aware  that  a  first-rate  story  had  been  told  in  a  first- 
rate  way,  and  that  it  was  brimful  of  a  quality  whose 
presence  they  never  suspected  —  humor. 

Now,  then,  the  interesting  question  is,  did  the 
frog  episode  happen  in  Angel's  Camp  in  the  spring 
of  '49,  as  told  in  my  hearing  that  day  in  the  fall  of 
1865?  I  am  perfectly  sure  that  it  did.  I  am  also 
sure  that  its  duplicate  happened  in  Bceotia  a  couple 
of  thousand  years  ago.  I  think  it  must  be  a  case  of 
history  actually  repeating  itself,  and  not  a  case  of  a 
good  story  floating  down  the  ages  and  surviving  be 
cause  too  good  to  be  allowed  to  perish. 

I  would  now  like  to  have  the  reader  examine  the 
Greek  story  and  the  story  told  by  the  dull  and  solemn 
Calif  ornian,  and  observe  how  exactly  alike  they  are  in 

essentials. 

[Translation] 

THE  ATHENIAN  AND  THE  FROG1 

An  Athenian  once  fell  in  with  a  Boeotian  who  was  sitting  by 
the  roadside  looking  at  a  frog.    Seeing  the  other  approach,  the 
1  Sidgwick,  Greek  Prose  Composition,  page  1  16. 
IO2 


THE     "JUMPING    FROG* 

Boeotian  said  his  was  a  remarkable  frog,  and  asked  if  he  would 
agree  to  start  a  contest  of  frogs,  on  condition  that  he  whose  frog 
jumped  farthest  should  receive  a  large  sum  of  money.  The 
Athenian  replied  that  he  would  if  the  other  would  fetch  him  a 
frog,  for  the  lake  was  near.  To  this  he  agreed,  and  when  he 
was  gone  the  Athenian  took  the  frog,  and,  opening  its  mouth, 
poured  some  stones  into  its  stomach,  so  that  it  did  not  indeed 
seem  larger  than  before,  but  could  not  jump.  The  Boeotian  soon 
returned  with  the  other  frog,  and  the  contest  began.  The 
second  frog  first  was  pinched,  and  jumped  moderately;  then  they 
pinched  the  Boeotian  frog.  And  he  gathered  himself  for  a  leap, 
and  used  the  utmost  effort,  but  he  could  not  move  his  body  the 
least.  So  the  Athenian  departed  with  the  money.  When  he 
was  gone  the  Boeotian,  wondering  what  was  the  matter  with 
the  frog,  lifted  him  up  and  examined  him.  And  being  turned 
upside  down,  he  opened  his  mouth  and  vomited  out  the  stones. 

And  here  is  the  way  it  happened  in  California : 
FROM  "THE  CELEBRATED  JUMPING  FROG  OF  CALAVERAS  COUNTY" 

Well,  thish-yer  Smiley  had  rat-tarriers,  and  chicken  cocks,  and 
tom-cats,  and  all  them  kind  of  things,  till  you  couldn't  rest,  and 
you  couldn't  fetch  nothing  for  him  to  bet  on  but  he'd  match 
you.  He  ketched  a  frog  one  day,  and  took  him  home,  and  said 
he  cal'lated  to  educate  him;  and  so  he  never  done  nothing  for 
three  months  but  set  in  his  back  yard  and  learn  that  frog  to 
jump.  And  you  bet  you  he  did  learn  him,  too.  He'd  give  him 
a  little  punch  behind,  and  the  next  minute  you'd  see  that  frog 
whirling  in  the  air  like  a  doughnut — see  him  turn  one  summerset, 
or  maybe  a  couple  if  he  got  a  good  start,  and  come  down  flat- 
footed  and  all  right,  like  a  cat.  He  got  him  up  so  in  the  matter 
of  ketching  flies,  and  kep'  him  in  practice  so  constant,  that  he'd 
nail  a  fly  every  time  as  fur  as  he  could  see  him.  Smiley  said  all  a 
frog  wanted  was  education,  and  he  could  do  'most  anything — and 
I  believe  him.  Why,  I've  seen  him  set  Dan'l  Webster  down  here 
on  this  floor — Dan'l  Webster  was  the  name  of  the  frog — and  sing 
out  "Flies,  Dan'l,  flies!"  and  quicker'n  you  could  wink  he'd  spring 
straight  up  and  snake  a  fly  off 'n  the  counter  there,  and  flop  down 
on  the  floor  ag'in  as  solid  as  a  gob  of  mud,  and  fall  to  scratching 
the  side  of  his  head  with  his  hind  foot  as  indifferent  as  if  he  hadn't 
8  103 


MARK    TWAIN 

no  idea  he'd  been  doin'  any  more'n  any  frog  might  do.  You  never 
see  a  frog  so  modest  and  straightforward  as  he  was,  for  all  he  was 
so  gifted.  And  when  it  come  to  fair  and  square  jumping  on  a 
dead  level,  he  could  get  over  more  ground  at  one  straddle  than 
any  animal  of  his  breed  you  ever  see.  Jumping  on  a  dead  level 
was  his  strong  suit,  you  understand;  and  when  it  came  to  that, 
Smiley  would  ante  up  money  on  him  as  long  as  he  had  a  red. 
Smiley  was  monstrous  proud  of  his  frog,  and  well  he  might  be, 
for  fellers  that  had  traveled  and  been  everywheres  all  said  he 
laid  over  any  frog  that  ever  they  see. 

Well,  Smiley  kep'  the  beast  in  a  little  lattice  box,  and  he  used 
to  fetch  him  down-town  sometimes  and  lay  for  a  bet.  One  day 
a  feller — a  stranger  in  the  camp,  he  was — come  acrost  him  with 
his  box,  and  says: 

"What  might  it  be  that  you've  got  in  the  box?"" 

And  Smiley  says,  sorter  indifferent-like,  "  It  might  be  a  parrot, 
or  it  might  be  a  canary,  maybe,  but  it  ain't — it's  only  just  a  frog." 

And  the  feller  took  it,  and  looked  at  it  careful,  and  turned  it 
round  this  way  and  that,  and  says,  "  H  'm — so  'tis.  Well,  what's 
he  good  for?" 

"Well,"  Smiley  says,  easy  and  careless,  "he's  good  enough  for 
one  thing,  I  should  judge — he  can  out  jump  any  frog  in  Calaveras 
County." 

The  feller  took  the  box  again  and  took  another  long,  particular 
look,  and  gave  it  back  to  Smiley,  and  says,  very  deliberate, 
"Well,"  he  says,  "I  don't  see  no  p'ints  about  that  frog  that's 
any  better'n  any  other  frog." 

"Maybe  you  don't,"  Smiley  says.  "Maybe  you  understand 
frogs  and  maybe  you  don't  understand  'em;  maybe  you've  had 
experience,  and  maybe  you  ain't  only  a  amature,  as  it  were. 
Anyways,  I've  got  my  opinion,  and  I'll  resk  forty  dollars  that  he 
can  out  jump  any  frog  in  Calaveras  County." 

And  the  feller  studies  a  minute,  and  then  says,  kinder  sad-like, 
"Well,  I'm  only  a  stranger  here,  and  I  ain't  got  no  frog,  but  if 
I  had  a  frog  I'd  bet  you." 

And  then  Smiley  says:  "That's  all  right—that's' all  right— if 
you'll  hold  my  box  a  minute,  I'll  go  and  get  you  a  frog."  And 
so  the  feller  took  the  box  and  put  up  his  forty  dollars  along  with 
Smiley's  and  set  down  to  wait. 

So  he  set  there  a  good  while  thinking  and  thinking  to  hisself, 
and  then  he  got  the  frog  out  and  prized  his  mouth  open  and  took 


THE     "JUMPING    FROG' 

a  teaspoon  and  filled  him  full  of  quail-shot — filled  him  pretty 
near  up  to  his  chin — and  set  him  on  the  floor.  Smiley  he  went 
to  the  swamp  and  slopped  around  in  the  mud  for  a  long  time, 
and  finally  he  ketched  a  frog  and  fetched  him  in  and  give  him 
to  this  feller,  and  says: 

"Now,  if  you're  ready,  set  him  alongside  of  Dan'l,  with  his 
fore  paws  just  even  with  Dan'l's,  and  I'll  give  the  word."  Then 
he  says,  "One — two — three — git  I"  and  him  and  the  feller 
touched  up  the  frogs  from  behind,  and  the  new  frog  hopped  off 
lively;  but  Dan'l  give  a  heave,  and  hysted  up  his  shoulders — • 
so — like  a  Frenchman,  but  it  warn't  no  use — he  couldn't  budge; 
he  was  planted  as  solid  as  a  church,  and  he  couldn't  no  more 
stir  than  if  he  was  anchored  out.  Smiley  was  a  good  deal 
surprised,  and  he  was  disgusted,  too,  but  he  didn't  have  no  idea 
what  the  matter  was,  of  course. 

The  feller  took  the  money  and  started  away;  and  when  he 
was  going  out  at  the  door  he  sorter  jerked  his  thumb  over  his 
shoulder — so— at  Dan'l,  and  says  again,  very  deliberate:  "Well," 
he  says,  "7  don't  see  no  p'ints  about  that  frog  that's  any  better 'n 
any  other  frog." 

*"**Smilcy  he  stood  scratching  his  head  and  looking  down  at 
Dan'l  a  long  time,  and  at  last  he  says,  "I  do  wonder  what  in  the 
nation  that  frog  throw 'd  off  for — I  wonder  if  there  ain't  some 
thing  the  matter  with  him — he  'pears  to  look  mighty  baggy, 
somehow."  And  he  ketched  Dan'l  by  the  nap  of  the  neck,  and 
hefted  him,  and  says,  "Why,  blame  my  cats  if  he  don't  weigh 
five  pound!"  and  turned  him  upside  down,  and  he  belched  out 
a  double  handful  of  shot.  And  then  he  see  how  it  was,  and  he 
was  the  maddest  man — he  set  the  frog  down  and  took  out  after 
that  feller,  but  he  never  ketched  him. 

The  resemblances  are  deliciously  exact.  There 
you  have  the  wily  Boeotian  and  the  wily  Jim  Smiley 
waiting — two  thousand  years  apart — and  waiting, 
each  equipped  with  his  frog  and  "laying"  for  the 
stranger.  A  contest  is  proposed — for  money.  The 
Athenian  would  take  a  chance  "if  the  other  would 
fetch  him  a  frog";  the  Yankee  says:  "I'm  only  a 
stranger  here,  and  I  ain't  got  no  frog;  but  if  I  had 
8  105 


MARK    TWAIN 

a  frog  I'd  bet  you."  The  wily  Boeotian  and  the 
wily  Calif ornian,  with  that  vast  gulf  of  two  thousand 
years  between,  retire  eagerly  and  go  frogging  in  the 
marsh;  the  Athenian  and  the  Yankee  remain  behind 
and  work  a  base  advantage,  the  one  with  pebbles, 
the  other  with  shot.  Presently  the  contest  began. 
In  the  one  case  "they  pinched  the  Boeotian  frog"; 
in  the  other,  "him  and  the  feller  touched  up  the 
frogs  from  behind."  The  Boeotian  frog  "gathered 
himself  for  a  leap"  (you  can  just  see  him!),  "but 
could  not  move  his  body  in  the  least";  the  Cali- 
f ornian  frog  "give  a  heave,  but  it  warn't  no  use — 
he  couldn't  budge."  In  both  the  ancient  and  the 
modern  cases  the  strangers  departed  with  the 
money.  The  Boeotian  and  the  Californian  wonder 
what  is  the  matter  with  their  frogs;  they  lift  them 
and  examine;  they  turn  them  upside  down  and  out 
spills  the  informing  ballast. 

Yes,  the  resemblances  are  curiously  exact.  I 
used  to  tell  the  story  of  the  Jumping  Frog  in  San 
Francisco,  and  presently  Artemus  Ward  came  along 
and  wanted  it  to  help  fill  out  a  little  book  which  he 
was  about  to  publish;  so  I  wrote  it  out  and  sent  it 
to  his  publisher,  Carleton;  but  Carleton  thought  the 
book  had  enough  matter  in  it,  so  he  gave  the  story 
to  Henry  Clapp  as  a  present,  and  Clapp  put  it  in 
his  Saturday  Press,  and  it  killed  that  paper  with  a 
suddenness  that  was  beyond  praise.  At  least  the 
paper  died  with  that  issue,  and  none  but  envious 
people  have  ever  tried  to  rob  me  of  the  honor  and 
credit  of  killing  it.  The  "Jumping  Frog"  was  the 
first  piece  of  writing  of  mine  that  spread  itself 

106 


THE     "JUMPING    FROG' 

through  the  newspapers  and  brought  me  into  public 
notice.  Consequently,  the  Saturday  Press  was  a 
cocoon  and  I  the  worm  in  it;  also,  I  was  the  gay- 
colored  literary  moth  which  its  death  set  free.  This 
simile  has  been  used  before. 

Early  in  '66  the  "Jumping  Frog"  was  issued  in 
book  form,  with  other  sketches  of  mine.  A  year  or 
two  later  Madame  Blanc  translated  it  into  French 
and  published  it  in  the  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes, 
but  the  result  was  not  what  should  have  been  ex 
pected,  for  the  Revue  struggled  along  and  pulled 
through,  and  is  alive  yet.  I  think  the  fault  must 
have  been  in  the  translation.  I  ought  to  have  trans 
lated  it  myself.  I  think  so  because  I  examined  into 
the  matter  and  finally  retranslated  the  sketch  from 
the  French  back  into  English,  to  see  what  the  trouble 
was;  that  is,  to  see  just  what  sort  of  a  focus  the 
French  people  got  upon  it.  Then  the  mystery  was 
explained.  In  French  the  story  is  too  confused,  and 
chaotic,  and  unreposeful,  and  ungrammatical,  and 
insane;  consequently  it  could  only  cause  grief  and 
sickness — it  could  not  kill.  A  glance  at  my  re- 
translation  will  show  the  reader  that  this  must  be 

true. 

[My  Retranslation] 

THE  FROG  JUMPING  OF  THE  COUNTY  OF  CALAVERAS 

Eh  bien !  this  Smiley  nourished  some  terriers  a  rats,  and  some 
cocks  of  combat,  and  some  cats,  and  all  sort  of  things;  and  with 
his  rage  of  betting  one  no  had  more  of  repose.  He  trapped  one 
day  a  frog  and  him  imported  with  him  (ct  Vemporta  chez  lui) 
saying  that  he  pretended  to  make  his  education.  You  me 
believe  if  you  will,  but  during  three  months  he  not  has  nothing 
done  but  to  him  apprehend  to  jump  (apprendre  a  sauter)  in  a 
court  retired  of  her  mansion  (de  sa  maison}.  And  I  you  respond 

107 


MARK    TWAIN 

that  he  have  succeeded.  He  him  gives  a  small  blow  by  behind, 
and  the  instant  after  you  shall  see  the  frog  turn  in  the  air  like 
a  grease-biscuit,  make  one  summersault,  sometimes  two,  when 
she  was  well  started,  and  re-fall  upon  his  feet  like  a  cat.  He  him 
had  accomplished  in  the  art  of  to  gobble  the  flies  (gober  des 
mouches),  and  him  there  exercised  continually — so  well  that  a 
fly  at  the  most  far  that  she  appeared  was  a  fly  lost.  Smiley  had 
custom  to  say  that  all  which  lacked  to  a  frog  it  was  the  education, 
but  with  the  education  she  could  do  nearly  all — and  I  him  believe. 
Tenez,  I  him  have  seen  pose  Daniel  Webster  there  upon  this 
plank — Daniel  Webster  was  the  name  of  the  frog — and  to  him 
sing,  "Some  flies,  Daniel,  some  flies!" — in  a  flash  of  the  eye 
Daniel  had  bounded  and  seized  a  fly  here  upon  the  counter, 
then  jumped  anew  at  the  earth,  where  he  rested  truly  to  him 
self  scratch  the  head  with  his  behind-foot,  as  if  he  no  had  not 
the  least  idea  of  his  superiority.  Never  you  not  have  seen  frog 
as  modest,  as  natural,  sweet  as  she  was.  And  when  he  himself 
agitated  to  jump  purely  and  simply  upon  plain  earth,  she  does 
more  ground  in  one  jump  than  any  beast  of  his  species  than  you 
can  know. 

To  jump  plain — this  was  his  strong.  When  he  himself  agi 
tated  for  that  Smiley  multiplied  the  bets  upon  her  as  long  as 
there  to  him  remained  a  red.  It  must  to  know,  Smiley  was 
monstrously  proud  of  his  frog,  and  he  of  it  was  right,  for  some 
men  who  were  traveled,  who  had  all  seen,  said  that  they  to  him 
would  be  injurious  to  him  compare  to  another  frog.  Smiley 
guarded  Daniel  in  a  little  box  latticed  which  he  carried  by  times 
to  the  village  for  some  bet. 

One  day  an  individual  stranger  at  the  camp  him  arrested  with 
his  box  and  him  said: 

"What  is  this  that  you  have  then  shut  up  there  within?" 

Smiley  said,  with  an  air  indifferent: 

"That  could  be  a  paroquet,  or  a  syringe  (ou  un  serin),  but  this 
no  is  nothing  of  such,  it  not  is  but  a  frog." 

The  individual  it  took,  it  regarded  with  care,  it  turned  from 
one  side  and  from  the  other,  then  he  said: 

"Tiens!  in  effect!— At  what  is  she  good?" 

"My  God!"  respond  Smiley,  always  with  an  air  disengaged, 
"she  is  good  for  one  thing,  to  my  notice  (d  mon  avis),  she  can 
batter  in  jumping  (die  pent  batter  en  sautant)  all  frogs  of  the 
county  of  Calaveras," 


THE     "JUMPING    PROG' 

The  individual  re-took  the  box,  it  examined  of  new  longly,  and 
it  rendered  to  Smiley  in  saying  with  an  air  deliberate : 

"Eh  bienl  I  no  saw  not  that  that  frog  had  nothing  of  better 
than  each  frog."  (Je  ne  vois  pas  que  cette  grenouille  ait  rien  de 
mieux  qiCaucunc  grenouille.)  [If  that  isn't  grammar  gone  to 
seed,  then  I  count  myself  no  judge. — M.  T.] 

"Possible  that  you  not  it  saw  not,"  said  Smiley,  "possible 
that  you — you  comprehend  frogs;  possible  that  you  not  you  there 
comprehend  nothing;  possible  that  you  had  of  the  experience, 
and  possible  that  you  not  be  but  an  amateur.  Of  all  manner 
(De  toute  manierc)  I  bet  forty  dollars  that  she  batter  in  jumping 
no  matter  which  frog  of  the  county  of  Calaveras." 

The  individual  reflected  a  second,  and  said  like  sad: 

"I  not  am  but  a  stranger  here,  I  no  have  not  a  frog;  but  if 
I  of  it  had  one,  I  would  embrace  the  bet." 

"Strong,  well!"  respond  Smiley;  "nothing  of  more  facility. 
If  you  will  hold  my  box  a  minute,  I  go  you  to  search  a  frog 
(j'irai  vous  chcrchcr)" 

Behold,  then,  the  individual,  who  guards  the  box,  who  puts 
his  forty  dollars  upon  those  of  Smiley,  and  who  attends  (el  qui 
attend).  He  attended  enough  longtimes,  reflecting  all  solely. 
And  figure  you  that  he  takes  Daniel,  him  opens  the  mouth  by 
force  and  with  a  teaspoon  him  fills  with  shot  of  the  hunt,  even 
him  fills  just  to  the  chin,  then  he  him  puts  by  the  earth.  Smiley 
during  these  times  was  at  slopping  in  a  swamp.  Finally  he 
trapped  (attrapc)  a  frog,  him  carried  to  that  individual,  and  said: 

"Now  if  you  be  ready,  put  him  all  against  Daniel,  with  their 
bcf ore-feet  upon  the  same  line,  and  I  give  the  signal" — then  he 
added:  "One,  two,  three — advance!" 

Him  and  the  individual  touched  their  frogs  by  behind,  and 
the  frog  new  put  to  jump  smartly,  but  Daniel  himself  lifted 
ponderously,  exalted  the  shoulders  thus,  like  a  Frenchman — to 
what  good?  he  could  not  budge,  he  is  planted  solid  like  a  church, 
he  not  advance  no  more  than  if  one  him  had  put  at  the  anchor. 

Smiley  was  surprised  and  disgusted,  but  he  not  himself 
doubted  not  of  the  turn  being  intended  (mats  il  ne  se  doutait  pas 
du  tour  bien  enicndu).  The  individual  empocketed  the  silver, 
himself  with  it  went,  and  of  it  himself  in  going  is  that  he  no 
gives  not  a  jerk  of  thumb  over  the  shoulder — like  that — at 
the  poor  Daniel,  in  saying  with  his  air  deliberate — (L'indimdu 
cmpoche  Vargcnt  s'en  va  et  en  s'en  allant  est  cc  qu'il  ne  donm  pas 

109 


MARK     TWAIN 

un  coup  de  pouce  par-dessus  Vepaule,  comme  fa,  au  pauvre  Daniel, 
en  disant  de  son  air  delibere.) 

"Eh  bein!  I  no  see  not  that  that  frog  has  nothing  of  better  than 
another" 

Smiley  himself  scratched  longtimes  the  head,  the  eyes  fixed 
upon  Daniel,  until  that  which  at  last  he  said: 

"I  me  demand  how  the  devil  it  makes  itself  that  this  beast 
has  refused.  Is  it  that  she  had  something?  One  would  believe 
that  she  is  stuffed." 

He  grasped  Daniel  by  the  skin  of  the  neck,  him  lifted  and 
said: 

"The  wolf  me  bite  if  he  no  weigh  not  five  pounds." 

He  him  reversed  and  the  unhappy  belched  two  handfuls  of 
shot  (et  le  malheureux,  etc.). — When  Smiley  recognized  how  it 
was,  he  was  like  mad.  He  deposited  his  frog  by  the  earth  and 
ran  after  the  individual,  but  he  not  him  caught  never. 

It  may  be  that  there  are  people  who  can  translate 
better  than  I  can,  but  I  am  not  acquainted  with  them. 

So  ends  the  private  and  public  history  of  the 
Jumping  Frog  of  Calaveras  County,  an  incident 
which  has  this  unique  feature  about  it — that  it  is 
both  old  and  new,  a  ''chestnut"  and  not  a  "chest 
nut";  for  it  was  original  when  it  happened  two 
thousand  years  ago,  and  was  again  original  when  it 
happened  in  California  in  our  own  time. 


MENTAL    TELEGRAPHY 


A    MANUSCRIPT    WITH    A    HISTORY 

NOTE  TO  THE  EDITOR. — By  glancing  over  the  inclosed  bundle 
of  rusty  old  manuscript,  you  will  perceive  that  I  once  made  a 
great  discovery:  the  discovery  that  certain  sorts  of  thing  which, 
from  the  beginning  of  the  world,  had  always  been  regarded  as 
merely  " curious  coincidences" — that  is  to  say,  accidents — were 
no  more  accidental  than  is  the  sending  and  receiving  of  a  tele 
gram  an  accident.  I  made  this  discovery  sixteen  or  seventeen 
years  ago,  and  gave  it  a  name — "  Mental  Telegraphy."  It  is  the 
same  thing  around  the  outer  edges  of  which  the  Psychical 
Society  of  England  began  to  group  (and  play  with)  four  or  five 
years  ago,  and  which  they  named  "Telepathy."  Within  the 
last  two  or  three  years  they  have  penetrated  toward  the  heart 
of  the  matter,  however,  and  have  found  out  that  mind  can  act 
upon  mind  in  a  quite  detailed  and  elaborate  way  over  vast 
stretches  of  land  and  water.  And  they  have  succeeded  in  doing, 
by  their  great  credit  and  influence,  what  I  could  never  have 
done — they  have  convinced  the  world  that  mental  telegraphy  is 
not  a  jest,  but  a  fact,  and  that  it  is  a  thing  not  rare,  but  exceed 
ingly  common.  They  have  done  our  age  a  service — and  a  very 
great  service,  I  think. 

In  this  old  manuscript  you  will  find  mention  of  an  extraordi 
nary  experience  of  mine  in  the  mental  telegraphic  line,  of  date 
about  the  year  1874  or  1875 — the  one  concerning  the  Great 
Bonanza  book.  It  was  this  experience  that  called  my  attention 
to  the  matter  under  consideration.  I  began  to  keep  a  record, 
after  that,  of  such  experiences  of  mine  as  seemed  explicable  by 
the  theory  that  minds  telegraph  thoughts  to  each  other.  In 
1878  I  went  to  Germany  and  began  to  write  the  book  called 
A  Tramp  A  broad.  The  bulk  of  this  old  batch  of  manuscript  was 
written  at  that  time  and  for  that  book.  But  I  removed  it  when 

in 


MARK    TWAIN 

I  came  to  revise  the  volume  for  the  press;  for  I  feared  that  the 
public  would  treat  the  thing  as  a  joke  and  throw  it  aside,  whereas 
I  was  in  earnest. 

At  home,  eight  or  ten  years  ago,  I  tried  to  creep  in  under 
shelter  of  an  authority  grave  enough  to  protect  the  article  from 
ridicule — The  North  American  Review.  But  Mr  Metcalf  wa? 
too  wary  for  me.  He  said  that  to  treat  these  mere  "  coinci 
dences"  seriously  was  a  thing  which  the  Review  couldn't  dare 
to  do;  that  I  must  put  either  my  name  or  my  nom  de  plume 
to  the  article,  and  thus  save  the  Review  from  harm.  But  I 
couldn't  consent  to  that;  it  would  be  the  surest  possible  way  to 
defeat  my  desire  that  the  public  should  receive  the  thing  seri 
ously,  and  be  willing  to  stop  and  give  it  some  fair  degree  of 
attention.  So  I  pigeonholed  the  MS.,  because  I  could  not  get 
it  piiblished  anonymously. 

Now  see  how  the  world  has  moved  since  then.  These  small 
experiences  of  mine,  which  were  too  formidable  at  that  time  for 
admission  to  a  grave  magazine — if  the  magazine  must  allow  them 
to  appear  as  something  above  and  beyond  "accidents"  and 
"coincidences" — are  trifling  and  commonplace  now,  since  the 
flood  of  light  recently  cast  upon  mental  telegraphy  by  the  intelli 
gent  labors  of  the  Psychical  Society.  But  I  think  they  are  worth 
publishing,  just  to  show  what  harmless  and  ordinary  matters 
were  considered  dangerous  and  incredible  eight  or  ten  years  ago. 

As  I  have  said,  the  bulk  of  this  old  manuscript  was  written 
in  1878;  a  later  part  was  written  from  time  to  time  two,  three, 
and  four  years  afterward.  The  "Postscript"  I  add  to-day 

MAY,  '78. — Another  of  those  apparently  trifling 
things  has  happened  to  me  which  puzzle  and  per 
plex  all  men  every  now  and  then,  keep  them  think 
ing  an  hour  or  two,  and  leave  their  minds  barren  of 
explanation  or  solution  at  last.  Here  it  is — and  it 
looks  inconsequential  enough,  I  am  obliged  to  say. 
A  few  days  ago  I  said:  "It  must  be  that  Frank 
Millet  doesn't  know  we  are  in  Germany,  or  he 
would  have  written  long  before  this.  I  have  been 
on  the  point  of  dropping  him  a  line  at  least  a  dozen 

112 


MENTAL    TELEGRAPHY 

times  during  the  past  six  weeks,  but  I  always  de 
cided  to  wait  a  day  or  two  longer,  and  see  if  we 
shouldn't  hear  from  him.  But  now  I  will  write." 
And  so  I  did.  I  directed  the  letter  to  Paris,  and 
thought,  "Now  we  shall  hear  from  him  before  this 
letter  is  fifty  miles  from  Heidelberg — it  always 
happens  so." 

True  enough;  but  why  should  it?  That  is  the 
puzzling  part  of  it.  We  are  always  talking  about 
letters  ''crossing"  each  other,  for  that  is  one  of  the 
very  commonest  accidents  of  this  life.  We  call  it 
"accident,"  but  perhaps  we  misname  it.  We  have 
the  instinct  a  dozen  times  a  year  that  the  letter  we 
are  writing  is  going  to  "cross"  the  other  person's 
letter;  and  if  the  reader  will  rack  his  memory  a 
little  he  will  recall  the  fact  that  this  presentiment 
had  strength  enough  to  it  to  make  him  cut  his 
letter  down  to  a  decided  briefness,  because  it  would 
be  a  waste  of  time  to  write  a  letter  which  was  going 
to  "cross,"  and  hence  be  a  useless  letter.  I  think 
that  in  my  experience  this  instinct  has  generally 
come  to  me  in  cases  where  I  had  put  off  my  letter 
a  good  while  in  the  hope  that  the  other  person 
would  write. 

Yes,  as  I  was  saying,  I  had  waited  five  or  six 
weeks;  then  I  wrote  but  three  lines,  because  I  felt 
and  seemed  to  know  that  a  letter  from  Millet  would 
cross  mine.  And  so  it  did.  He  wrote  the  same  day 
that  I  wrote.  The  letters  crossed  each  other.  His 
letter  went  to  Berlin,  care  of  the  American  minister, 
who  sent  it  to  me.  In  this  letter  Millet  said  he  had 
been  trying  for  six  weeks  to  stumble  upon  somebody 


MARK    TWAIN 

who  knew  my  German  addres,  and  at  last  the  idea 
had  occured  to  him  that  a  letter  sent  to  the  care  of 
the  embassy  at  Berlin  might  possibly  find  me. 
Maybe  it  was  an  "  accident  "  that  he  finally  deter 
mined  to  write  me  at  the  same  moment  that  I  finally 
determined  to  write  him,  but  I  think  not. 

With  me  the  most  irritating  thing  has  been  to  wait 
a  tedious  time  in  a  purely  business  matter,  hoping 
that  the  other  party  will  do  the  writing,  and  then  sit 
down  and  do  it  myself,  perfectly  satisfied  that  that 
other  man  is  sitting  down  at  the  same  moment  to 
write  a  letter  which  will  "cross"  mine.  And  yet  one 
must  go  on  writing,  just  the  same;  because  if  you 
get  up  from  your  table  and  postpone,  that  other  man 
will  do  the  same  thing,  exactly  as  if  you  two  were 
harnessed  together  like  the  Siamese  twins,  and  must 
duplicate  each  other's  movements. 

Several  months  before  I  left  home  a  New  York 
firm  did  some  work  about  the  house  for  me,  and 
did  not  make  a  success  of  it,  as  it  seemed  to  me. 
When  the  bill  came,  I  wrote  and  said  I  wanted  the 
work  perfected  before  I  paid.  They  replied  that  they 
were  very  busy,  but  that  as  soon  as  they  could  spare 
the  proper  man  the  thing  should  be  done.  I  waited 
more  than  two  months,  enduring  as  patiently  as 
possible  the  companionship  of  bells  which  would 
fire  away  of  their  own  accord  sometimes  when  no 
body  was  touching  them,  and  at  other  times  wouldn't 
ring  though  you  struck  the  button  with  a  sledge 
hammer.  Many  a  time  I  got  ready  to  write  and  then 
postponed  it ;  but  at  last  I  sat  down  one  evening  and 
poured  out  my  grief  to  the  extent  of  a  page  or  so, 

114 


MENTAL    TELEGRAPHY 

and  then  cut  my  letter  suddenly  short,  because  a 
strong  instinct  told  me  that  the  firm  had  begun  to 
move  in  the  matter.  When  I  came  down  to  break 
fast  next  morning  the  postman  had  not  yet  taken 
my  letter  away,  but  the  electrical  man  had  been 
there,  done  his  work,  and  was  gone  again !  He 
had  received  his  orders  the  previous  evening  from 
his  employers,  and  had  come  up  by  the  night 
train. 

If  that  was  an  "accident,"  it  took  about  three 
months  to  get  it  up  in  good  shape. 

One  evening  last  summer  I  arrived  in  Washington, 
registered  at  the  Arlington  Hotel,  and  went  to  my 
room.  I  read  and  smoked  until  ten  o'clock;  then, 
finding  I  was  not  yet  sleepy,  I  thought  I  would  take 
a  breath  of  fresh  air.  So  I  went  forth  in  the  rain, 
and  tramped  through  one  street  after  another  in  an 

aimless  and  enjoyable  way.  I  knew  that  Mr.  O , 

a  friend  of  mine,  was  in  town,  and  I  wished  I  might 
run  across  him;  but  I  did  not  propose  to  hunt  for 
him  at  midnight,  especially  as  I  did  not  know  where 
he  was  stopping.  Toward  twelve  o'clock  the  streets 
had  become  so  deserted  that  I  felt  lonesome;  so  I 
stepped  into  a  cigar  shop  far  up  the  avenue,  and 
remained  there  fifteen  minutes,  listening  to  some 
bummers  discussing  national  politics.  Suddenly  the 
spirit  of  prophecy  came  upon  me,  and  I  said  to 
myself,  "Now  I  will  go  out  at  this  door,  turn  to  the 

left,  walk  ten  steps,  and  meet  Mr.  O face  to 

face."  I  did  it,  too!  I  could  not  see  his  face, 
because  he  had  an  umbrella  before  it,  and  it  was 
pretty  dark  anyhow,  but  he  interrupted  the  man 


MARK    TWAIN 

he  was  walking  and  talking  with,  and  I  recognized 
his  voice  and  stopped  him. 

That  I  should  step  out  there  and  stumble  upon 

Mr.  O was  nothing,  but  that  I  should  know 

beforehand  that  I  was  going  to  do  it  was  a  good  deal. 
It  is  a  very  curious  thing  when  you  come  to  look 
at  it.  I  stood  far  within  the  cigar  shop  when  I 
delivered  my  prophecy;  I  walked  about  five  steps 
to  the  door,  opened  it,  closed  it  after  me,  walked 
down  a  flight  of  three  steps  to  the  sidewalk,  then 
turned  to  the  left  and  walked  four  or  five  more,  and 
found  my  man.  I  repeat  that  in  itself  the  thing 
was  nothing;  but  to  know  it  would  happen  so 
beforehand,  wasn't  that  really  curious? 

I  have  criticized  absent  people  so  often,  and  then 
discovered,  to  my  humiliation,  that  I  was  talking 
with  their  relatives,  that  I  have  grown  superstitious 
about  that  sort  of  thing  and  dropped  it.  How  like 
an  idiot  one  feels  after  a  blunder  like  that ! 

We  are  always  mentioning  people,  and  in  that 
very  instant  they  appear  before  us.  We  laugh,  and 
say,  ''Speak  of  the  devil,'*  and  so  forth,  and  there 
we  drop  it,  considering  it  an  "accident."  It  is  a 
cheap  and  convenient  way  of  disposing  of  a  grave 
and  very  puzzling  mystery.  The  fact  is,  it  does 
seem  to  happen  too  often  to  be  an  accident. 

Now  I  come  to  the  oddest  thing  that  ever  hap 
pened  to  me.  Two  or  three  years  ago  I  was  lying 
in  bed,  idly  musing,  one  morning — it  was  the  2d  of 
March — when  suddenly  a  red-hot  new  idea  came 
whistling  down  into  my  camp,  and  exploded  with 
such  comprehensive  effectiveness  as  to  sweep  the 

116 


MENTAL    TELEGRAPHY 

vicinity  clean  of  rubbishy  reflections  and  fill  the  air 
with  their  dust  and  flying  fragments.  This  idea, 
stated  in  simple  phrase,  was  that  the  time  was  ripe 
and  the  market  ready  for  a  certain  book;  a  book 
which  ought  to  be  written  at  once;  a  book  which 
must  command  attention  and  be  of  peculiar  interest 
—to  wit,  a  book  about  the  Nevada  silver-mines. 
The  " Great  Bonanza"  was  a  new  wonder  then,  and 
everybody  was  talking  about  it.  It  seemed  to  me 
that  the  person  best  qualified  to  write  this  book  was 
Mr.  William  H.  Wright,  a  journalist  of  Virginia, 
Nevada,  by  whose  side  I  had  scribbled  many  months 
when  I  was  a  reporter  there  ten  or  twelve  years 
before.  He  might  be  alive  still;  he  might  be  dead; 
I  could  not  tell;  but  I  would  write  him,  anyway.  I 
began  by  merely  and  modestly  suggesting  that  he 
make  such  a  book ;  but  my  interest  grew  as  I  went  on, 
and  I  ventured  to  map  out  what  I  thought  ought  to 
be  the  plan  of  the  work,  he  being  an  old  friend,  and 
not  given  to  taking  good  intentions  for  ill.  I  even 
dealt  with  details,  and  suggested  the  order  and 
sequence  which  they  should  follow.  I  was  about  to 
put  the  manuscript  in  an  envelope,  when  the  thought 
occurred  to  me  that  if  this  book  should  be  written 
at  my  suggestion,  and  then  no  publisher  happened 
to  want  it,  I  should  feel  uncomfortable;  so  I  con 
cluded  to  keep  my  letter  back  until  I  should  have 
secured  a  publisher.  I  pigeonholed  my  document, 
and  dropped  a  note  to  my  own  publisher,  asking  him 
to  name  a  day  for  a  business  consultation.  He  was 
out  of  town  on  a  far  journey. 

My  note  remained  unanswered,  and  at  the  end 


MARK     TWAIN 

of  three  or  four  days  the  whole  matter  had  passed 
out  of  my  mind.  On  the  pth  of  March  the  postman 
brought  three  or  four  letters,  and  among  them  a 
thick  one  whose  superscription  was  in  a  hand  which 
seemed  dimly  familiar  to  me.  I  could  not  "place" 
it  at  first,  but  presently  I  succeeded.  Then  I  said 
to  a  visiting  relative  who  was  present: 

"Now  I  will  do  a  miracle.  I  will  tell  you  every 
thing  this  letter  contains — date,  signature,  and  ail- 
without  breaking  the  seal.  It  is  from  a  Mr.  Wright, 
of  Virginia,  Nevada,  and  is  dated  the  2d  of  March- 
seven  days  ago.  Mr.  Wright  proposes  to  make  a 
book  about  the  silver-mines  and  the  Great  Bonanza, 
and  asks  what  I,  as  a  friend,  think  of  the  idea.  He 
says  his  subjects  are  to  be  so  and  so,  their  order  and 
sequence  so  and  so,  and  he  will  close  with  a  history 
of  the  chief  feature  of  the  book,  one  Great  Bonanza." 

I  opened  the  letter,  and  showed  that  I  had  stated 
the  date  and  the  contents  correctly.  Mr.  Wright's 
letter  simply  contained  what  my  own  letter,  written 
on  the  same  date,  contained,  and  mine  still  lay  in 
its  pigeonhole,  where  it  had  been  lying  during  the 
seven  days  since  it  was  written. 

There  was  no  clairvoyance  about  this,  if  I  rightly 
comprehend  what  clairvoyance  is.  I  think  the  clair 
voyant  professes  to  actually  see  concealed  writing, 
and  read  it  off  word  for  word.  This  was  not  my 
case.  I  only  seemed  to  know,  and  to  know  abso 
lutely,  the  contents  of  the  letter  in  detail  and  due 
order,  but  I  had  to  word  them  myself.  I  translated 
them,  so  to  speak,  out  of  Wright's  language  into 
my  own. 

118 


MENTAL    TELEGRAPHY 

Wright's  letter  and  the  one  which  I  had  written  to 
him  but  never  sent  were  in  substance  the  same. 

Necessarily  this  could  not  come  by  accident;  such 
elaborate  accidents  cannot  happen.  Chance  might 
have  duplicated  one  or  two  of  the  details,  but  she 
would  have  broken  dowrn  on  the  rest.  I  could  not 
doubt — there  was  no  tenable  reason  for  doubting— 
that  Mr.  Wright's  mind  and  mine  had  been  in  close 
and  crystal-clear  communication  with  each  other 
across  three  thousand  miles  of  mountain  and  desert 
on  the  morning  of  the  2d  of  March.  I  did  not 
consider  that  both  minds  originated  that  succession 
of  ideas,  but  that  one  mind  originated  it,  and  simply 
telegraphed  it  to  the  other.  I  was  curious  to  know 
which  brain  was  the  telegrapher  and  which  the 
receiver,  so  I  wrote  and  asked  for  particulars.  Mr. 
Wright's  reply  showed  that  his  mind  had  done  the 
originating  and  telegraphing,  and  mine  the  receiving. 
Mark  that  significant  thing  now;  consider  for  a 
moment  how  many  a  splendid  "original"  idea  has 
been  unconsciously  stolen  from  a  man  three  thousand 
miles  away!  If  one  should  question  that  this  is 
so,  let  him  look  into  the  cyclopedia  and  con  once 
more  that  curious  thing  in  the  history  of  inventions 
which  has  puzzled  every  one  so  much — that  is,  the 
frequency  with  which  the  same  machine  or  other 
contrivance  has  been  invented  at  the  same  time  by 
several  persons  in  different  quarters  of  the  globe. 
The  world  was  without  an  electric  telegraph  for 
several  thousand  years;  then  Professor  Henry,  the 
American,  Wheatstone  in  England,  Morse  on  the 
sea,  and  a  German  in  Munich,  all  invented  it  at  the 

9  IIQ 


MARK    TWAIN 

same  time.  The  discovery  of  certain  ways  of  apply 
ing  steam  was  made  in  two  or  three  countries  in  the 
same  year.  Is  it  not  possible  that  inventors  are  con 
stantly  and  unwittingly  stealing  each  other's  ideas 
whilst  they  stand  thousands  of  miles  asunder? 

Last  spring  a  literary  friend  of  mine,1  who  lived  a 
hundred  miles  away,  paid  me  a  visit,  and  in  the 
course  of  our  talk  he  said  he  had  made  a  discovery 
— conceived  an  entirely  new  idea — one  which  cer 
tainly  had  never  been  used  in  literature.  He  told 
me  what  it  was.  I  handed  him  a  manuscript,  and 
said  he  would  find  substantially  the  same  idea  in 
that — a  manuscript  which  I  had  written  a  week 
before.  The  idea  had  been  in  my  mind  since  the 
previous  November;  it  had  only  entered  his  while  I 
was  putting  it  on  paper,  a  week  gone  by.  He  had 
not  yet  written  his;  so  he  left  it  unwritten,  and 
gracefully  made  over  all  his  right  and  title  in  the 
idea  to  me. 

The  following  statement,  which  I  have  clipped 
from  a  newspaper,  is  true.  I  had  the  facts  from  Mr. 
Howells's  lips  when  the  episode  was  new: 

A  remarkable  story  of  a  literary  coincidence  is  told  of 
Mr.  Howells's  Atlantic  Monthly  serial,  "Dr.  Breen's  Practice." 
A  lady  of  Rochester,  New  York,  contributed  to  the  magazine 
after  u  Dr.  Breen's  Practice  "  was  in  type,  a  short  story  which  so 
much  resembled  Mr.  Howells's  that  he  felt  it  necessary  to  call 
upon  her  and  explain  the  situation  of  affairs  in  order  that  no 
charge  of  plagiarism  might  be  preferred  against  him.  He 
showed  her  the  proof-sheets  of  his  story,  and  satisfied  her  that 
the  similarity  between  her  work  and  his  was  one  of  those  strange 
coincidences  which  have  from  time  to  time  occurred  in  the  literary 

world. 

iW.  D.  Howells. 


I2O 


MENTAL    TELEGRAPHY 

I  had  read  portions  of  Mr.  Howells's  story,  both 
in  MS.  and  in  proof,  before  the  lady  offered  her 
contribution  to  the  magazine. 

Here  is  another  case.     I  clip  it  from  a  newspaper: 

The  republication  of  Miss  Alcott's  novel  Moods  recalls  to 
a  writer  in  the  Boston  Post  a  singular  coincidence  which  was 
brought  to  light  before  the  book  was  first  published:  "Miss 
Anna  M.  Crane,  of  Baltimore,  published  Emily  Chester,  a 
novel  which  was  pronounced  a  very  striking  and  strong  story. 
A  comparison  of  this  book  with  Moods  showed  that  the  two 
writers,  though  entire  strangers  to  each  other,  and  living  hun 
dreds  of  miles  apart,  had  both  chosen  the  same  subject  for  their 
novels,  had  followed  almost  the  same  line  of  treatment  up  to  a 
certain  point,  where  the  parallel  ceased,  and  the  denouements 
were  entirely  opposite.  And  even  more  curious,  the  leading 
characters  in  both  books  had  identically  the  same  names,  so 
that  the  names  in  Miss  Alcott's  novel  had  to  be  changed.  Then 
the  book  was  published  by  Loring." 

Four  or  five  times  within  my  recollection  there  has 
been  a  lively  newspaper  war  in  this  country  over 
poems  whose  authorship  was  claimed  by  two  or  three 
different  people  at  the  same  time.  There  was  a  war 
of  this  kind  over  "Nothing  to  Wear,"  "Beautiful 
Snow,"  "Rock  me  to  Sleep,  Mother,"  and  also  over 
one  of  Mr.  Will  Carleton's  early  ballads,  I  think. 
These  were  all  blameless  cases  of  unintentional  and 
unwitting  mental  telegraphy,  I  judge. 

A  word  more  as  to  Mr.  Wright.  He  had  had  his 
book  in  mind  some  time;  consequently  he,  and  not 
I,  had  originated  the  idea  of  it.  The  subject  was 
entirely  foreign  to  my  thoughts;  I  was  wholly  ab 
sorbed  in  other  things.  Yet  this  friend,  whom  I 
had  not  seen  and  had  hardly  thought  of  for  eleven 
years,  was  able  to  shoot  his  thoughts  at  me  across 

9  121 


MARK     TWAIN 

three  thousand  miles  of  country,  and  fill  my  head 
with  them,  to  the  exclusion  of  every  other  interest, 
in  a  single  moment.  He  had  begun  his  letter  after 
finishing  his  work  on  the  morning  paper — a  little 
after  three  o'clock,  he  said.  When  it  was  three  in 
the  morning  in  Nevada  it  was  about  six  in  Hartford, 
where  I  lay  awake  thinking  about  nothing  in  par 
ticular;  and  just  about  that  time  his  ideas  came 
pouring  into  my  head  from  across  the  continent,  and 
I  got  up  and  put  them  on  paper,  under  the  im 
pression  that  they  were  my  own  original  thoughts. 

I  have  never  seen  any  mesmeric  or  clairvoyant 
performances  or  spiritual  manifestations  which  were 
in  the  least  degree  convincing — a  fact  which  is  not 
of  consequence,  since  my  opportunities  have  been 
meager;  but  I  am  forced  to  believe  that  one  human 
mind  (still  inhabiting  the  flesh)  can  communicate 
with  another,  over  any  sort  of  a  distance,  and  with 
out  any  artificial  preparation  of  "sympathetic  con 
ditions"  to  act  as  a  transmitting  agent.  I  suppose 
that  when  the  sympathetic  conditions  happen  to 
exist  the  two  minds  communicate  with  each  other, 
and  that  otherwise  they  don't;  and  I  suppose  that  if 
the  sympathetic  conditions  could  be  kept  up  right 
along,  the  two  minds  would  continue  to  correspond 
without  limit  as  to  time. 

Now  there  is  that  curious  thing  which  happens  to 
everybody:  suddenly  a  succession  of  thoughts  or 
sensations  flocks  in  upon  you,  which  startles  you  with 
the  weird  idea  that  you  have  ages  ago  experienced 
just  this  succession  of  thoughts  or  sensations  in  a 
previous  existence.  The  previous  existence  is  pos- 

122 


MENTAL    TELEGRAPHY 

sible,  no  doubt,  but  I  am  persuaded  that  the  solution 
of  this  hoary  mystery  lies  not  there,  but  in  the  fact 
that  some  far-off  stranger  has  been  telegraphing  his 
thoughts  and  sensations  into  your  consciousness,  and 
that  he  stopped  because  some  counter-current  or 
other  obstruction  intruded  and  broke  the  line  of 
communication.  Perhaps  they  seem  repetitions  to 
you  because  they  are  repetitions,  got  at  second  hand 
from  the  other  man.  Possibly  Mr.  Brown,  the 
"mind-reader,"  reads  other  people's  minds,  possibly 
he  does  not;  but  I  know  of  a  surety  that  I  have  read 
another  man's  mind,  and  therefore  I  do  not  see  why 
Mr.  Brown  shouldn't  do  the  like  also. 

I  wrote  the  foregoing  about  three  years  ago,  in 
Heidelberg,  and  laid  the  manuscript  aside,  purposing 
to  add  to  it  instances  of  mind-telegraphing  from 
time  to  time  as  they  should  fall  under  my  experience. 
Meantime  the  "crossing"  of  letters  has  been  so 
frequent  as  to  become  monotonous.  However,  I 
have  managed  to  get  something  useful  out  of  this 
hint;  for  now,  when  I  get  tired  of  waiting  upon  a 
man  whom  I  very  much  wish  to  hear  from,  I  sit 
down  and  compel  him  to  write,  whether  he  wants  to 
or  not ;  that  is  to  say,  I  sit  down  and  write  him,  and 
then  tear  my  letter  up,  satisfied  that  my  act  has 
forced  him  to  write  me  at  the  same  moment.  I  do 
not  need  to  mail  my  letter — the  writing  it  is  the 
only  essential  thing. 

Of  course  I  have  grown  superstitious  about  this 
letter-crossing  business  —  this  was  natural.  We 
stayed  awhile  in  Venice  after  leaving  Heidelberg. 

123 


MARK     TWAIN 

One  day  I  was  going  down  the  Grand  Canal  in  a 
gondola,  when  I  heard  a  shout  behind  me,  and  looked 
around  to  see  what  the  matter  was;  a  gondola  was 
rapidly  following,  and  the  gondolier  was  making 
signs  to  me  to  stop.  I  did  so,  and  the  pursuing  boat 
ranged  up  alongside.  There  was  an  American  lady 
in  it — a.  resident  of  Venice.  She  was  in  a  good  deal 
of  distress.  She  said : 

"  There's  a  New  York  gentleman  and  his  wife  at 
the  Hotel  Britannia  who  arrived  a  week  ago,  expect 
ing  to  find  news  of  their  son,  whom  they  have  heard 
nothing  about  during  eight  months.  There  was  no 
news.  The  lady  is  down  sick  with  despair;  the 
gentleman  can't  sleep  or  eat.  Their  son  arrived  at 
San  Francisco  eight  months  ago,  and  announced  the 
fact  in  a  letter  to  his  parents  the  same  day.  That 
is  the  last  trace  of  him.  The  parents  have  been  in 
Europe  ever  since;  but  their  trip  has  been  spoiled, 
for  they  have  occupied  their  time  simply  in  drifting 
restlessly  from  place  to  place,  and  writing  letters 
everywhere  and  to  everybody,  begging  for  news  of" 
their  son;  but  the  mystery  remains  as  dense  as  ever. 
Now  the  gentleman  wants  to  stop  writing  and  go 
calling.  He  wants  to  cable  San  Francisco.  He 
has  never  done  it  before,  because  he  is  afraid  of— 
of  he  doesn't  know  what  —  death  of  his  son,  no 
doubt.  But  he  wants  somebody  to  advise  him  to 
cable;  wants  me  to  do  it.  Now  I  simply  can't;  for 
if  no  news  came,  that  mother  yonder  would  die. 
So  I  have  chased  you  up  in  order  to  get  you  to  sup 
port  me  in  urging  him  to  be  patient,  and  put  the 
thing  off  a  week  or  two  longer;  it  may  be  the 

124 


MENTAL    TELEGRAPHY 

saving  of  this  lady.  Come  along;  let's  not  lose  any 
time." 

So  I  went  along,  but  I  had  a  program  of  my 
own.  When  I  was  introduced  to  the  gentleman  I 
said:  "I  have  some  superstitions,  but  they  are 
worthy  of  respect.  If  you  will  cable  San  Francisco 
immediately,  you  will  hear  news  of  your  son  inside 
of  twenty-four  hours.  I  don't  know  that  you  will 
get  the  news  from  San  Francisco,  but  you  will  get 
it  from  somewhere.  The  only  necessary  thing  is  to 
cable  —  that  is  all.  The  news  will  come  within 
twenty-four  hours.  Cable  Peking,  if  you  prefer; 
there  is  no  choice  in  this  matter.  This  delay  is  all 
occasioned  by  your  not  cabling  long  ago,  when  you 
were  first  moved  to  do  it." 

It  seems  absurd  that  this  gentleman  should  have 
been  cheered  up  by  this  nonsense,  but  he  was;  he 
brightened  up  at  once,  and  sent  his  cablegram;  and 
next  day,  at  noon,  when  a  long  letter  arrived  from  his 
lost  son,  the  man  was  as  grateful  to  me  as  if  I  had 
really  had  something  to  do  with  the  hurrying  up  of 
that  letter.  The  son  had  shipped  from  San  Fran 
cisco  in  a  sailing-vessel,  and  his  letter  was  written 
from  the  first  port  he  touched  at,  months  afterward. 

This  incident  argues  nothing,  and  is  valueless.  I 
insert  it  only  to  show  how  strong  is  the  superstition 
which  "letter-crossing"  has  bred  in  me.  I  was  so 
sure  that  a  cablegram  sent  to  any  place,  no  matter 
where,  would  defeat  itself  by  "crossing"  the  incom 
ing  news,  that  my  confidence  was  able  to  raise  up  a 
hopeless  man  and  make  him  cheery  and  hopeful. 

But  here  are  two  or  three  incidents  which  come 

125 


MARK     TWAIN 

strictly  under  the  head  of  mind- telegraphing.  One 
Monday  morning,  about  a  year  ago,  the  mail  came 
in,  and  I  picked  up  one  of  the  letters  and  said  to  a 
friend:  "Without  opening  this  letter  I  will  tell  you 

what  it  says.  It  is  from  Mrs. ,  and  she  says  she 

was  in  New  York  last  Saturday,  and  was  purposing 
to  run  up  here  in  the  afternoon  train  and  surprise 
us,  but  at  the  last  moment  changed  her  mind  and 
returned  westward  to  her  home.'* 

I  was  right;  my  details  were  exactly  correct.  Yet 

we  had  had  no  suspicion  that  Mrs. was  coming 

to  New  York,  or  that  she  had  even  a  remote  inten 
tion  of  visiting  us. 

I  smoke  a  good  deal — that  is  to  say,  all  the  time- 
so,  during  seven  years,  I  have  tried  to  keep  a  box 
of  matches  handy,  behind  a  picture  on  the  mantel 
piece;  but  I  have  had  to  take  it  out  in  trying,  be 
cause  George  (colored),  who  makes  the  fires  and 
lights  the  gas,  always  uses  my  matches  and  never 
replaces  them.  Commands  and  persuasions  have 
gone  for  nothing  with  him  all  these  seven  years. 
One  day  last  summer,  when  our  family  had  been 
away  from  home  several  months,  I  said  to  a  member 
of  the  household : 

"Now,  with  all  this  long  holiday,  and  nothing  in 
the  way  to  interrupt — " 

"I  can  finish  the  sentence  for  you,"  said  the  mem 
ber  of  the  household. 

"Do  it,  then,"  said  I. 

"George  ought  to  be  able,  by  practising,  to  learn 
to  let  those  matches  alone." 

It  was  correctly  done.  That  was  what  I  was 

126 


MENTAL    TELEGRAPHY 

going  to  say.  Yet  until  that  moment  George  and  the 
matches  had  not  been  in  my  mind  for  three  months, 
and  it  is  plain  that  the  part  of  the  sentence  which 
I  uttered  offers  not  the  least  cue  or  suggestion  of 
what  I  was  purposing  to  follow  it  with. 

My  mother1  is  descended  from  the  younger  of  two 
English  brothers  named  Lambton,  who  settled  in  this 
country  a  few  generations  ago.  The  tradition  goes 
that  the  elder  of  the  two  eventually  fell  heir  to  a 
certain  estate  in  England  (now  an  earldom),  and 
died  right  away.  This  has  always  been  the  way 
with  our  family.  They  always  die  when  they  could 
make  anything  by  not  doing  it.  The  two  Lambtons 
left  plenty  of  Lambtons  behind  them;  and  when  at 
last,  about  fifty,  years  ago,  the  English  baronetcy 
was  exalted  to  an  earldom,  the  great  tribe  of  Amer 
ican  Lambtons  began  to  bestir  themselves — that  is, 
those  descended  from  the  elder  branch.  Ever  since 
that  day  one  or  another  of  these  has  been  fretting 
his  life  uselessly  away  with  schemes  to  get  at  his 
" rights."  The  present  "rightful  earl"— I  mean  the 
American  one — used  to  write  me  occasionally,  and 
try  to  interest  me  in  his  projected  raids  upon  the 
title  and  estates  by  offering  me  a  share  in  the  latter 
portion  of  the  spoil;  but  I  have  always  managed  to 
resist  his  temptations. 

Well,  one  day  last  summer  I  was  lying  under  a 
tree,  thinking  about  nothing  in  particular,  when  an 
absurd  idea  flashed  into  imy  head,  and  I  said  to 
a  member  of  the  household,  "Suppose  I  should  live 
to  be  ninety-two,  and  dumb  and  blind  and  toothless, 

1  She  was  still  living  when  this  was  written, 
127 


MARK    TWAIN 

and  just  as  I  was  gasping  out  what  was  left  of  me 
on  my  death-bed — " 

"Wait,  I  will  finish  the  sentence, "  said  a  member 
of  the  household. 

"Go  on,"  said  I. 

"Somebody  should  rush  in  with  a  document,  and 
say,  'All  the  other  heirs  are  dead,  and  you  are  the 
Earl  of  Durham !'" 

That  is  truly  what  I  was  going  to  say.  Yet  until 
that  moment  the  subject  had  not  entered  my  mind 
or  been  referred  to  in  my  hearing  for  months  before. 
A  few  years  ago  this  thing  would  have  astounded 
me,  but  the  like  could  not  much  surprise  me  now, 
though  it  happened  every  week;  for  I  think  I  know 
now  that  mind  can  communicate  accurately  with 
mind  without  the  aid  of  the  slow  and  clumsy  vehicle 
of  speech. 

This  age  does  seem  to  have  exhausted  invention 
nearly;  still,  it  has  one  important  contract  on  its 
hands  yet — the  invention  of  the  phrenophone;  that 
is  to  say,  a  method  whereby  the  communicating  of 
mind  with  mind  may  be  brought  under  command 
and  reduced  to  certainty  and  system.  The  tele 
graph  and  the  telephone  are  going  to  become  too 
slow  and  wordy  for  our  needs.  We  must  have  the 
thought  itself  shot  into  our  minds  from  a  distance; 
then,  if  we  need  to  put  it  into  words,  we  can  do 
that  tedious  work  at  our  leisure.  Doubtless  the 
something  which  conveys  our  thoughts  through  the 
air  from  brain  to  brain  is  a  finer  and  subtler  form 
of  electricity,  and  all  we  need  do  is  to  find  out  how 
to  capture  it  and  how  to  force  it  to  do  its  work,  as 


MENTAL    TELEGRAPHY 

we  have  had  to  do  in  the  case  of  the  electric  currents. 
Before  the  day  of  telegraphs  neither  one  of  these 
marvels  would  have  seemed  any  easier  to  achieve 
than  the  other. 

While  I  am  writing  this,  doubtless  somebody  on 
the  other  side  of  the  globe  is  writing  it,  too.  The 
question  is,  am  I  inspiring  him  or  is  he  inspiring 
me?  I  cannot  answer  that;  but  that  these  thoughts 
have  been  passing  through  somebody  else's  mind  all 
the  time  I  have  been  setting  them  down  I  have  no 
sort  of  doubt. 

I  will  close  this  paper  with  a  remark  which  I 
found  some  time  ago  in  Bos  well's  Johnson: 

"  Voltaire's  Candide  is  wonderfully  similar  in  its  "plan  and 
conduct  to  Johnson's  Rasselas ;  insomuch  that  I  have  heard 
Johnson  say  that  if  they  had  not  been  published  so  closely  one 
after  the  other  that  there  was  not  time  for  imitation,  it  would 
have  been  in  vain  to  deny  that  the  scheme  of  that  which  came  latest 
was  taken  from  the  other." 

The  two  men  were  widely  separated  from  each 
other  at  the  time,  and  the  sea  lay  between  them. 


POSTSCRIPT 

In  the  Atlantic  for  June,  1882,  Mr.  John  Fiske 
refers  to  the  often-quoted  Darwin-and- Wallace  "co 
incidence": 

I  alluded,  just  now,  to  the  "unforeseen  circumstance "  which 
led  Mr.  Darwin  in  1859  to  break  his  long  silence,  and  to  write 
and  publish  the  Origin  of  Species.  This  circumstance  served,  no 
less  than  the  extraordinary  success  of  his  book,  to  show  how  ripe 
the  minds  of  men  had  become  for  entertaining  such  views  as 

129 


MARK     TWAIN 

those  which  Mr.  Darwin  propounded.  In  1858  Mr.  Wallace, 
who  was  then  engaged  in  studying  the  natural  history  of  the 
Malay  Archipelago,  sent  to  Mr.  Darwin  (as  the  man  most  likely 
to  understand  him)  a  paper  in  which  he  sketched  the  outlines  of 
a  theory  identical  with  that  upon  which  Mr.  Darwin  had  so  long 
been  at  work.  The  same  sequence  of  observed  facts  and  infer 
ences  that  had  led  Mr.  Darwin  to  the  discovery  of  natural 
selection  and  its  consequences  had  led  Mr.  Wallace  to  the  very 
threshold  of  the  same  discovery;  but  in  Mr.  Wallace's  mind  the 
theory  had  by  no  means  been  wrought  out  to  the  same  degree 
of  completeness  to  which  it  had  been  wrought  in  the  mind  of 
Mr.  Darwin.  In  the  preface  to  his  charming  book  on  Natural 
Selection,  Mr.  Wallace,  with  rare  modesty  and  candor,  acknowl 
edges  that  whatever  value  his  speculations  may  have  had,  they 
have  been  utterly  surpassed  in  richness  and  cogency  of  proof  by 
those  of  Mr.  Darwin.  This  is  no  doubt  true,  and  Mr.  Wallace 
has  done  such  good  work  in  further  illustration  of  the  theory 
that  he  can  well  afford  to  rest  content  with  the  second  place  in 
the  first  announcement  of  it. 

The  coincidence,  however,  between  Mr.  Wallace's  conclu 
sions  and  those  of  Mr.  Darwin  was  very  remarkable.  But,  after 
all,  coincidences  of  this  sort  have  not  been  uncommon  in  the 
history  of  scientific  inquiry.  Nor  is  it  at  all  surprising  that  they 
should  occur  now  and  then,  when  we  remember  that  a  great  and 
pregnant  discovery  must  always  be  concerned  with  some  question 
which  many  of  the  foremost  minds  in  the  world  are  busy  thinking 
about.  It  was  so  with  the  discovery  of  the  differential  calculus, 
and  again  with  the  discovery  of  the  planet  Neptune.  It  was  so 
with  the  interpretation  of  the  Egyptian  hieroglyphics,  and  with 
the  establishment  of  the  undulatory  theory  of  light.  It  was  so, 
to  a  considerable  extent,  with  the  introduction  of  the  new 
chemistry,  with  the  discovery  of  the  mechanical  equivalent  of 
heat,  and  the  whole  doctrine  of  the  correlation  of  forces.  It  was 
so  with  the  invention  of  the  electric  telegraph  and  with  the 
discovery  of  spectrum  analysis.  And  it  is  not  at  all  strange 
that  it  should  have  been  so  with  the  doctrine  of  the  origin  of 
species  through  natural  selection. 

He  thinks  these  "coincidences"  were  apt  to  hap 
pen  because  the  matters  from  which  they  sprang 

130 


MENTAL    TELEGRAPHY 

were  matters  which  many  of  the  foremost  minds  in 
the  world  were  busy  thinking  about.  But  perhaps 
one  man  in  each  case  did  the  telegraphing  to  the 
others.  The  aberrations  which  gave  Leverrier  the 
idea  that  there  must  be  a  planet  of  such  and  such 
mass  and  such  and  such  orbit  hidden  from  sight  out 
yonder  in  the  remote  abysses  of  space  were  not  new ; 
they  had  been  noticed  by  astronomers  for  genera 
tions.  Then  why  should  it  happen  to  occur  to  three 
people,  widely  separated — Leverrier,  Mrs.  Somer- 
ville,  and  Adams — to  suddenly  go  to  worrying  about 
those  aberrations  all  at  the  same  time,  and  set  them 
selves  to  work  to  find  out  what  caused  them,  and 
to  measure  and  weigh  an  invisible  planet,  and 
calculate  its  orbit,  and  hunt  it  down  and  catch  it?— 
a  strange  project  which  nobody  but  they  had  ever 
thought  of  before.  If  one  astronomer  had  invented 
that  odd  and  happy  project  fifty  years  before,  don't 
you  think  he  would  have  telegraphed  it  to  several 
others  without  knowing  it? 

But  now  I  come  to  a  puzzler.  How  is  it  that 
inanimate  objects  are  able  to  affect  the  mind?  They 
seem  to  do  that.  However,  I  wish  to  throw  in  a 
parenthesis  first — just  a  reference  to  a  thing  every 
body  is  familiar  with — the  experience  of  receiving  a 
clear  and  particular  answer  to  your  telegram  before 
your  telegram  has  reached  the  sender  of  the  answer. 
That  is  a  case  where  your  telegram  has  gone  straight 
from  your  brain  to  the  man  it  was  meant  for,  far 
outstripping  the  wire's  slow  electricity,  and  it  is  an 
exercise  of  mental  telegraphy  which  is  as  common 
as  dining.  To  return  to  the  influence  of  inanimate 


MARK   TWAIN 

things.  In  the  cases  of  non-professional  clairvoyance 
examined  by  the  Psychical  Society  the  clairvoyant 
has  usually  been  blindfolded,  then^some  object  which 
has  been  touched  or  worn  by  a  person  is  placed  in 
his  hand ;  the  clairvoyant  immediately  describes  that 
person,  and  goes  on  and  gives  a  history  of  some 
event  with  which  the  text  object  has  been  connected. 
If  the  inanimate  object  is  able  to  affect  and  inform 
the  clairvoyant's  mind,  maybe  it  can  do  the  same 
when  it  is  working  in  the  interest  of  mental  teleg 
raphy.  Once  a  lady  in  the  West  wrote  me  that  her 
son  was  coming  to  New  York  to  remain  three  weeks, 
and  would  pay  me  a  visit  if  invited,  and  she  gave 
me  his  address.  I  mislaid  the  letter,  and  forgot  all 
about  the  matter  till  the  three  weeks  were  about 
up.  Then  a  sudden  and  fiery  irruption  of  remorse 
burst  up  in  my  brain  that  illuminated  all  the  region 
round  about,  and  I  sat  down  at  once  and  wrote  to 
the  lady  and  asked  for  that  lost  address.  But,  upon 
reflection,  I  judged  that  the  stirring  up  of  my  recol 
lection  had  not  been  an  accident,  so  I  added  a  post 
script  to  say,  never  mind,  I  should  get  a  letter  from 
her  son  before  night.  And  I  did  get  it;  for  the 
letter  was  already  in  the  town,  although  not  delivered 
yet.  It  had  influenced  me  somehow.  I  have  had 
so  many  experiences  of  this  sort — a  dozen  of  them 
at  least — that  I  am  nearly  persuaded  that  inanimate 
objects  do  not  confine  their  activities  to  helping  the 
clairvoyant,  but  do  every  now  and  then  give  the 
mental  telegraphist  a  lift. 

The  case  of  mental  telegraphy  which  I  am  coming 
to  now  comes  under  I  don't  exactly  know  what 

132 


MENTAL    TELEGRAPHY 

head.  I  clipped  it  from  one  of  our  local  papers 
six  or  eight  years  ago.  I  know  the  details  to  be 
right  and  true,  for  the  story  was  told  to  me  in  the 
same  form  by  one  of  the  two  persons  concerned  (a 
clergyman  of  Hartford)  at  the  time  that  the  curious 
thing  happened: 

A  REMARKABLE  COINCIDENCE. — Strange  coincidences  make 
the  most  interesting  of  stories  and  most  curious  of  studies. 
Nobody  can  quite  say  how  they  come  about,  but  everybody 
appreciates  the  fact  when  they  do  come,  and  it  is  seldom  that 
any  more  complete  and  curious  coincidence  is  recorded  of  minor 
importance  than  the  following,  which  is  absolutely  true  and 
occurred  in  this  city. 

At  the  time  of  the  building  of  one  of  the  finest  residences  of 
Hartford,  which  is  still  a  very  new  house,  a  local  firm  supplied 
the  wall-paper  for  certain  rooms,  contracting  both  to  furnish 
and  to  put  on  the  paper.  It  happened  that  they  did  not  calcu 
late  the  size  of  one  room  exactly  right,  and  the  paper  of  the 
design  selected  for  it  fell  short  just  half  a  roll.  They  asked  for 
delay  enough  to  send  on  to  the  manufacturers  for  what  was 
needed,  and  were  told  that  there  was  no  especial  hurry.  It 
happened  that  the  manufacturers  had  none  on  hand,  and  had 
destroyed  the  blocks  from  which  it  was  printed.  They  wrote 
that  they  had  a  full  list  of  the  dealers  to  whom  they  had  sold 
that  paper,  and  that  they  would  write  to  each  of  these  and  get 
from  some  of  them  a  roll.  It  might  involve  a  delay  of  a  couple 
of  weeks,  but  they  would  surely  get  it. 

In  the  course  of  time  came  a  letter  saying  that,  to  their 
great  surprise,  they  could  not  find  a  single  roll.  Such  a  thing 
was  very  unusual,  but  in  this  case  it  had  so  happened.  Accord 
ingly  the  local  firm  asked  for  further  time,  saying  they  would 
write  to  their  own  customers  who  had  bought  of  that  pattern, 
and  would  get  the  piece  from  them.  But  to  their  surprise,  this 
effort  also  failed.  A  long  time  had  now  elapsed,  and  there  was 
no  use  of  delaying  any  longer.  They  had  contracted  to  paper 
the  room,  and  their  only  course  was  to  take  off  that  which 
was  insufficient  and  put  on  some  other  of  which  there  was  enough 
to  go  around.  Accordingly  at  length  a  man  was  sent  out  to 


MARK    TWAIN 

remove  the  paper.  He  got  his  apparatus  ready,  and  was  about 
to  begin  to  work,  under  the  direction  of  the  owner  of  the  build 
ing,  when  the  latter  was  for  the  moment  called  away.  The 
house  was  large  and  very  interesting,  and  so  many  people  had 
rambled  about  it  that  finally  admission  had  been  refused  by  a 
sign  at  the  door.  On  the  occasion,  however,  when  a  gentleman 
had  knocked  and  asked  for  leave  to  look  about,  the  owner, 
being  on  the  premises,  had  been  sent  for  to  reply  to  the  request 
in  person.  That  was  the  call  that  for  the  moment  delayed  the 
final  preparations.  The  gentleman  went  to  the  door  and  ad 
mitted  the  stranger,  saying  he  would  show  him  about  the  house, 
but  first  must  return  for  a  moment  to  that  room  to  finish  his 
directions  there,  and  he  told  the  curious  story  about  the  paper  as 
they  went  on.  They  entered  the  room  together,  and  the  first 
thing  the  stranger,  who  lived  fifty  miles  away,  said  on  looking 
about  was,  "  Why,  I  have  that  very  paper  on  a  room  in  my  house, 
and  I  have  an  extra  roll  of  it  laid  away,  which  is  at  your  service." 
In  a  few  days  the  wall  was  papered  according  to  the  original 
contract.  Had  not  the  owner  been  at  the  house,  the  stranger 
would  not  have  been  admitted;  had  he  called  a  day  later,  it 
would  have  been  too  late;  had  not  the  facts  been  almost  acci 
dentally  told  to  him,  he  would  probably  have  said  nothing  of  the 
paper,  and  so  on.  The  exact  fitting  of  all  the  circumstances  is 
something  very  remarkable,  and  makes  one  of  those  stories  that 
seem  hardly  accidental  in  their  nature. 

Something  that  happened  the  other  day  brought 
my  hoary  MS.  to  mind,  and  that  is  how  I  came 
to  dig  it  out  from  its  dusty  pigeonhole  grave  for 
publication.  The  thing  that  happened  was  a  ques 
tion.  A  lady  asked:  "Have  you  ever  had  a  vision 
—when  awake?"  I  was  about  to  answer  promptly, 
when  the  last  two  words  of  the  question  began  to 
grow  and  spread  and  swell,  and  presently  they  at 
tained  to  vast  dimensions.  She  did  not  know  that 
they  were  important;  and  I  did  not  at  first,  but  I 
soon  saw  that  they  were  putting  me  on  the  track  of 
the  solution  of  a  mystery  which  had  perplexed  me 


MENTAL    TELEGRAPHY 

a  good  deal.  You  will  see  what  I  mean  when  I  get 
down  to  it.  Ever  since  the  English  Society  for 
Psychical  Research  began  its  investigations  of  ghost 
stories,  haunted  houses,  and  apparitions  of  the  living 
and  the  dead,  I  have  read  their  pamphlets  with 
avidity  as  fast  as  they  arrived.  Now  one  of  their 
commonest  inquiries  of  a  dreamer  or  a  vision-seer 
is,  "Are  you  sure  you  were  awake  at  the  time?" 
If  the  man  can't  say  he  is  sure  he  was  awake,  a 
doubt  falls  upon  his  tale  right  there.  But  if  he  is 
positive  he  was  awake,  and  offers  reasonable  evi 
dence  to  substantiate  it,  the  fact  counts  largely  for 
the  credibility  of  his  story.  It  does  with  the 
society,  and  it  did  with  me  until  that  lady  asked 
me  the  above  question  the  other  day. 

The  question  set  me  to  considering,  and  brought 
me  to  the  conclusion  that  you  can  be  asleep — at 
least,  wholly  unconscious — for  a  time,  and  not  sus 
pect  that  it  has  happened,  and  not  have  any  way 
to  prove  that  it  has  happened.  A  memorable  case 
was  in  my  mind.  About  a  year  ago  I  was  standing 
on  the  porch  one  day,  when  I  saw  a  man  coming 
up  the  walk.  He  was  a  stranger,  and  I  hoped  he 
would  ring  and  carry  his  business  into  the  house 
without  stopping  to  argue  with  me;  he  wrould  have 
to  pass  the  front  door  to  get  to  me,  and  I  hoped  he 
wouldn't  take  the  trouble;  to  help,  I  tried  to  look 
like  a  stranger  myself — it  often  works.  I  was  look 
ing  straight  at  that  man;  he  had  got  to  within  ten 
feet  of  the  door  and  within  twenty-five  feet  of  me— 
and  suddenly  he  disappeared.  It  was  as  astounding 
as  if  a  church  should  vanish  from  before  your  face 
10  i 


MARK    TWAIN 

and  leave  nothing  behind  it  but  a  vacant  lot.  I 
was  unspeakably  delighted.  I  had  seen  an  appari 
tion  at  last,  with  my  own  eyes,  in  broad  daylight. 
I  made  up  my  mind  to  write  an  account  of  it  to  the 
society.  I  ran  to  where  the  specter  had  been,  to 
make  sure  he  was  playing  fair,  then  I  ran  to  the 
other  end  of  the  porch,  scanning  the  open  grounds 
as  I  went.  No,  everything  was  perfect;  he  couldn't 
have  escaped  without  my  seeing  him;  he  was  an 
apparition,  without  the  slightest  doubt,  and  I  would 
write  him  up  before  he  was  cold.  I  ran,  hot  with 
excitement,  and  let  myself  in  with  a  latch-key. 
When  I  stepped  into  the  hall  my  lungs  collapsed  and 
my  heart  stood  still.  For  there  sat  that  same  appa 
rition  in  a  chair  all  alone,  and  as  quiet  and  reposeful 
as  if  he  had  come  to  stay  a  year!  The  shock  kept 
me  dumb  for  a  moment  or  two  then  I  said,  "Did 
you  come  in  at  that  door?" 
"Yes." 

"Did  you  open  it,  or  did  you  ring?" 

"I  rang,  and  the  colored  man  opened  it." 

I  said  to  myself:  "This  is  astonishing.     It  takes 

George  all  of  two  minutes  to  answer  the  door-bell 

when  he  is  in  a  hurry,  and  I  have  never  seen  him  in  a 

hurry.    How  did  this  man  stand  two  minutes  at  that 

door,  within  five  steps  of  me,  and  I  did  not  see  him?" 

I  should  have  gone  to  my  grave  puzzling  over  that 

riddle  but  for  that  lady's  chance  question  last  week : 

"Have  you  ever  had  a  vision — when  awake?"     It 

stands  explained  now.     During  at  least  sixty  seconds 

that  day  I  was  asleep,  or  at  least  totally  unconscious, 

without  suspecting  it.     In  that  interval  the  man 

136 


MENTAL    TELEGRAPHY 

came  to  my  immediate  vicinity,  rang,  stood  there  and 
waited,  then  entered  and  closed  the  door,  and  I  did 
not  see  him  and  did  not  hear  the  door  slam. 

If  he  had  slipped  around  the  house  in  that  interval 
and  gone  into  the  cellar — he  had  time  enough — I 
should  have  written  him  up  for  the  society,  and 
magnified  him,  and  gloated  over  him,  and  hurrahed 
about  him,  and  thirty  yoke  of  oxen  could  not  have 
pulled  the  belief  out  of  me  that  I  was  of  the  favored 
ones  of  the  earth,  and  had  seen  a  vision — while  wide 
awake. 

Now  how  are  you  to  tell  when  you  are  awake? 
What  are  you  to  go  by  ?  People  bite  their  fingers  to 
find  out.  Why,  you  can  do  that  in  a  dream. 

10 


MENTAL  TELEGRAPHY  AGAIN 

1HAVE  three  or  four  curious  incidents  to  tell 
about.    They  seem  to  come  under  the  head  of 
what  I  named   "Mental  Telegraphy"  in  a  paper 
written  seventeen  years  ago,   and  published  long 
afterward. 

Several  years  ago  I  made  a  campaign  on  the  plat 
form  with  Mr.  George  W.  Cable.  In  Montreal  we 
were  honored  with  a  reception.  It  began  at  two  in 
the  afternoon  in  a  long  drawing-room  in  the  Windsor 
Hotel.  Mr.  Cable  and  I  stood  at  one  end  of  this 
room,  and  the  ladies  and  gentlemen  entered  it  at  the 
other  end,  crossed  it  at  that  end,  then  came  up  the 
long  left-hand  side,  shook  hands  with  us,  said  a 
word  or  two,  and  passed  on,  in  the  usual  way.  My 
sight  is  of  the  telescopic  sort,  and  I  presently  recog 
nized  a  familiar  face  among  the  throng  of  strangers 
drifting  in  at  the  distant  door,  and  I  said  to  myself, 
with  surprise  and  high  gratification,  "That  is  Mrs. 
R. ;  I  had  forgotten  that  she  was  a  Canadian."  She 
had  been  a  great  friend  of  mine  in  Carson  City, 
Nevada,  in  the  early  days.  I  had  not  seen  her  or 
heard  of  her  for  twenty  years;  I  had  not  been 
thinking  about  her;  there  was  nothing  to  suggest  her 
to  me,  nothing  to  bring  her  to  my  mind ;  in  fact,  to 

138 


MENTAL  TELEGRAPHY  AGAIN 

me  she  had  long  ago  ceased  to  exist,  and  had  dis 
appeared  from  my  consciousness.  But  I  knew  her 
instantly;  and  I  saw  her  so  clearly  that  I  was  able 
to  note  some  of  the  particulars  of  her  dress,  and  did 
note  them,  and  they  remained  in  my  mind.  I  was 
impatient  for  her  to  come.  In  the  midst  of  the  hand 
shakings  I  snatched  glimpses  of  her  and  noted  her 
progress  with  the  slow-moving  file  across  the  end  of 
the  room;  then  I  saw  her  start  up  the  side,  and  this 
gave  me  a  full  front  view  of  her  face.  I  saw  her  last 
when  she  was  within  twenty -five  feet  of  me.  For  an 
hour  I  kept  thinking  she  must  still  be  in  the  room 
somewhere  and  would  come  at  last,  but  I  was 
disappointed. 

When  I  arrived  in  the  lecture-hall  that  evening 
some  one  said:  "Come  into  the  waiting-room;  there's 
a  friend  of  yours  there  who  wants  to  see  you.  You'll 
not  be  introduced — you  are  to  do  the  recognizing 
without  help  if  you  can.'* 

I  said  to  myself:  "It  is  Mrs.  R.;  I  sha'n't  have 
any  trouble." 

There  were  perhaps  ten  ladies  present,  all  seated. 
In  the  midst  of  them  was  Mrs.  R.,  as  I  had  ex 
pected.  She  was  dressed  exactly  as  she  was  when 
I  had  seen  her  in  the  afternoon.  I  went  forward  and 
shook  hands  with  her  and  called  her  by  name,  and 
said: 

"I  knew  you  the  moment  you  appeared  at  the 
reception  this  afternoon." 

She  looked  surprised,  and  said:  "But  I  was  not 
at  the  reception.  I  have  just  arrived  from  Quebec, 
and  have  not  been  in  town  an  hour," 

i,39 


MARK    TWAIN 

It  was  my  turn  to  be  surprised  now.  I  said: 
"I  can't  help  it.  I  give  you  my  word  of  honor  that 
it  is  as  I  say.  I  saw  you  at  the  reception,  and  you 
were  dressed  precisely  as  you  are  now.  When  they 
told  me  a  moment  ago  that  I  should  find  a  friend  in 
this  room,  your  image  rose  before  me,  dress  and  all, 
just  as  I  had  seen  you  at  the  reception." 

Those  are  the  facts.  She  was  not  at  the  reception 
at  all,  or  anywhere  near  it ;  but  I  saw  her  there  never 
theless,  and  most  clearly  and  unmistakably.  To  that 
I  could  make  oath.  How  is  one  to  explain  this?  I 
was  not  thinking  of  her  at  the  time ;  had  not  thought 
of  her  for  years.  But  she  had  been  thinking  of  me, 
no  doubt;  did  her  thoughts  flit  through  leagues  of 
air  to  me,  and  bring  with  it  that  clear  and  pleasant 
vision  of  herself  ?  I  think  so.  That  was  and  remains 
my  sole  experience  in  the  matter  of  apparitions — I 
mean  apparitions  that  come  when  one  is  (ostensibly) 
awake.  I  could  have  been  asleep  for  a  moment; 
the  apparition  could  have  been  the  creature  of  a 
dream.  Still,  that  is  nothing  to  the  point;  the 
feature  of  interest  is  the  happening  of  the  thing 
just  at  that  time,  instead  of  at  an  earlier  or  later 
time,  which  is  argument  that  its  origin  lay  in 
thought-transference. 

My  next  incident  will  be  set  aside  by  most  persons 
as  being  merely  a  "coincidence,"  I  suppose.  Years 
ago  I  used  to  think  sometimes  of  making  a  lecturing 
trip  through  the  antipodes  and  the  borders  of  the 
Orient,  but  always  gave  up  the  idea,  partly  because 
of  the  great  length  of  the  journey  and  partly  because 
my  wife  could  not  well  manage  to  go  with  me. 

140 


MENTAL  TELEGRAPHY  AGAIN 

Toward  the  end  of  last  January  that  idea,  after  an 
interval  of  years,  came  suddenly  into  my  head  again 
—forcefully,  too,  and  without  any  apparent  reason. 
Whence  came  it?  What  suggested  it?  I  will  touch 
upon  that  presently. 

I  was  at  that  time  where  I  am  now — in  Paris.  I 
wrote  at  once  to  Henry  M.  Stanley  (London),  and 
asked  him  some  questions  about  his  Australian 
lecture  tour,  and  inquired  who  had  conducted  him 
and  what  were  the  terms.  After  a  day  or  two  his 
answer  came.  It  began: 

The  lecture  agent  for  Australia  and  New  Zealand  is  par 
excellence  Mr.  R.  S.  Smythe,  of  Melbourne. 

He  added  his  itinerary,  terms,  sea  expenses,  and 
some  other  matters,  and  advised  me  to  write  Mr. 
Smythe,  which  I  did — February  3d.  I  began  my 
letter  by  saying  in  substance  that,  while  he  did  not 
know  me  personally,  we  had  a  mutual  friend  in 
Stanley,  and  that  would  answer  for  an  introduc 
tion.  Then  I  proposed  my  trip,  and  asked  if  he 
would  give  me  the  same  terms  which  he  had  given 
Stanley. 

I  mailed  my  letter  to  Mr.  Smythe  February  6th, 
and  three  days  later  I  got  a  letter  from  the  selfsame 
Smythe,  dated  Melbourne,  December  lyth.  I  would 
as  soon  have  expected  to  get  a  letter  from  the  late 
George  Washington.  The  letter  began  somewhat  as 
mine  to  him  had  begun — with  a  self-introduction: 

DEAR  MR.  CLEMENS. — It  is  so  long  since  Archibald  Forbes 
and  I  spent  that  pleasant  afternoon  in  your  comfortable  house 
at  Hartford  that  you  have  probably  quite  forgotten  the  occasion. 

141 


MARK    TWAIN 

In  the  course  of  his  letter  this  occurs: 

I  am  willing  to  give  you  [here  he  named  the  terms  which  he 
had  given  Stanley]  for  an  antipodean  tour  to  last,  say,  three 
months. 

Here  was  the  single  essential  detail  of  my  letter 
answered  three  days  after  I  had  mailed  my  inquiry. 
I  might  have  saved  myself  the  trouble  and  the 
postage — and  a  few  years  ago  I  would  have  done 
that  very  thing,  for  I  would  have  argued  that  my 
sudden  and  strong  impulse  to  write  and  ask  some 
questions  of  a  stranger  on  the  under  side  of  the  globe 
meant  that  the  impulse  came  from  that  stranger,  and 
that  he  would  answer  my  questions  of  his  own 
motion  if  I  would  let  him  alone. 

Mr.  Smythe's  letter  probably  passed  under  my 
nose  on  its  way  to  lose  three  weeks  traveling  to 
America  and  back,  and  gave  me  a  whiff  of  its  con 
tents  as  it  went  along.  Letters  often  act  like  that. 
Instead  of  the  thought  coming  to  you  in  an  instant 
from  Australia,  the  (apparently)  unsentient  letter 
imparts  it^oo  you  as  it  glides  invisibly  past  your 
elbow  in  the  mail-bag. 

Next  incident.  In  the  following  month — March 
—I  was  in  America.  I  spent  a  Sunday  at  Irvington- 
on-the-Hudson  with  Mr.  John  Brisben  Walker,  of 
the  Cosmopolitan  magazine.  We  came  into  New 
York  next  morning,  and  went  to  the  Century  Club 
for  luncheon.  He  said  some  praiseful  things  about 
the  character  of  the  club  and  the  orderly  serenity  and 
pleasantness  of  its  quarters,  and  asked  if  I  had  never 
tried  to  acquire  membership  in  it.  I  said  I  had  not, 

142 


MENTAL    TELEGRAPHY    AGAIN 

and  that  New  York  clubs  were  a  continuous  expense 
to  the  country  members  without  being  of  frequent 
use  or  benefit  to  them. 

"And  now  I've  got  an  idea!"  said  I.  "There's 
the  Lotos — the  first  New  York  club  I  was  ever  a 
member  of — my  very  earliest  love  in  that  line.  I 
have  been  a  member  of  it  for  considerably  more  than 
twenty  years,  yet  have  seldom  had  a  chance  to  look 
in  and  see  the  boys.  They  turn  gray  and  grow  old 
while  I  am  not  watching.  And  my  dues  go  on.  I 
am  going  to  Hartford  this  afternoon  for  a  day  or 
two,  but  as  soon  as  I  get  back  I  will  go  to  John 
Elderkin  very  privately  and  say:  'Remember  the 
veteran  and  confer  distinction  upon  him,  for  the  sake 
of  old  times.  Make  me  an  honorary  member  and 
abolish  the  tax.  If  you  haven't  any  such  thing  as 
honorary  membership,  all  the  better — create  it  for 
my  honor  and  glory.'  That  would  be  a  great  thing; 
I  will  go  to  John  Elderkin  as  soon  as  I  get  back  from 
Hartford." 

I  took  the  last  express  that  afternoon,  first  tele 
graphing  Mr.  F.  G.  Whit  more  to  come  ,nd  see  me 
next  day.  When  he  came  he  asked : 

"Did  you  get  a  letter  from  Mr.  John  Elderkin, 
secretary  of  the  Lotos  Club,  before  you  left  New 
York?" 

"No." 

"Then  it  just  missed  you.  If  I  had  known  you 
were  coming  I  would  have  kept  it.  It  is  beautiful, 
and  will  make  you  proud.  The  Board  of  Directors, 
by  unanimous  vote,  have  made  your  a  life  member, 
and  squelched  those  dues;  and  you  are  to  be  on  hand 


MARK    TWAIN 

and  receive  your  dist  net  on  on  the  night  of  the  3oth, 
which  is  the  twenty -fifth  anniversary  of  the  founding 
of  the  club,  and  it  will  not  surprise  me  if  they  have 
some  great  times  there." 

What  put  the  honorary  membership  in  my  head 
that  day  in  the  Century  Club?  for  I  had  never 
thought  of  it  before.  I  don't  know  what  brought 
the  thought  to  me  at  that  particular  time  instead  of 
earlier,  but  I  am  well  satisfied  that  it  originated  with 
the  Board  of  Directors,  and  had  been  on  its  way  to 
my  brain  through  the  air  ever  since  the  moment  that 
saw  their  vote  recorded. 

Another  incident.  I  was  in  Hartford  two  or  three 
days  as  a  guest  of  the  Rev.  Joseph  H.  Twichell.  I 
have  held  the  rank  of  Honorary  Uncle  to  his  children 
for  a  quarter  of  a  century,  and  I  went  out  with  him 
in  the  trollery-car  to  visit  one  of  my  nieces,  who  is 
at  Miss  Porter's  famous  school  in  Farmington.  The 
distance  is  eight  or  nine  miles.  On  the  way,  talking, 
I  illustrated  something  with  an  anecdote.  This  is 
the  anecd©te : 

Two  years  and  a  half  ago  I  and  the  family  arrived 
at  Milan  on  our  way  to  Rome,  and  stopped  at  the 
Continental.  After  dinner  I  went  below  and  took  a 
seat  in  the  stone-paved  court,  where  the  customary 
lemon  trees  stand  in  the  customary  tubs,  and  said 
to  myself,  "Now  this  is  comfort,  comfort  and  repose, 
and  nobody  to  disturb  it;  I  do  not  know  anybody 
in  Milan." 

Then  a  young  gentleman  stepped  up  and  shook 
hands,  which  damaged  my  theory.  He  said,  in 
substance : 

144 


MENTAL    TELEGRAPHY    AGAIN 

"You  won't  remember  me,  Mr.  Clemens,  but  I 
remember  you  very  well.  I  was  a  cadet  at  West 
Point  when  you  and  Rev.  Joseph  H.  Twichell  came 
there  some  years  ago  and  talked  to  us  on  a  Hun 
dredth  Night.  I  am  a  lieutenant  in  the  regular 
army  now,  and  my  name  is  H.  I  am  in  Europe,  all 
alone,  for  a  modest  little  tour;  my  regiment  is  in 
Arizona." 

We  became  friendly  and  sociable,  and  in  the  course 
of  the  talk  he  told  me  of  an  adventure  which  had 
befallen  him — about  to  this  effect: 

"I  was  at  Bellagio,  stopping  at  the  big  hotel  there, 
and  ten  days  ago  I  lost  my  letter  of  credit.  I  did 
not  know  what  in  the  world  to  do.  I  was  a  stranger; 
I  knew  no  one  in  Europe;  I  hadn't  a  penny  in  my 
pocket;  I  couldn't  even  send  a  telegram  to  London 
to  get  my  lost  letter  replaced;  my  hotel  bill  was  a 
week  old,  and  the  presentation  of  it  imminent — so 
imminent  that  it  could  happen  at  any  moment  now. 
I  was  so  frightened  that  my  wits  seemed  to  leave 
me.  I  tramped  and  tramped,  back  and  forth,  like 
a  crazy  person.  If  anybody  approached  me  I  hur 
ried  away,  for  no  matter  what  a  person  looked  like, 
I  took  him  for  the  head  waiter  with  the  bill. 

"I  was  at  last  in  such  a  desperate  state  that  I 
was  ready  to  do  any  wild  thing  that  promised  even 
the  shadow  of  help,  and  so  this  is  the  insane  thing 
that  I  did.  I  saw  a  family  lunching  at  a  small 
table  on  the  veranda,  and  recognized  their  national 
ity — Americans — father,  mother,  and  several  young 
daughters — young,  tastefully  dressed,  and  pretty— 
the  rule  with  our  people.  I  went  straight  there  in 

J45 


MARK     TWAIN 

my  civilian  costume,  named  my  name,  said  I  was 
a  lieutenant  in  the  army,  and  told  my  story  and 
asked  for  help. 

"What  do  you  suppose  the  gentleman  did?  But 
you  would  not  guess  in  twenty  years.  He  took  out 
a  handful  of  go  d  coin  and  told  me  to  help  myself — 
freely.  That  is  what  he  did." 

The  next  morning  the  lieutenant  told  me  his  new 
letter  of  credit  had  arrived  in  the  night,  so  we  strolled 
to  Cook's  to  draw  money  to  pay  back  the  benefactor 
with.  We  got  it,  and  then  went  strolling  through 
the  great  arcade.  Presently  he  said,  "Yonder  they 
are;  come  and  be  introduced."  I  was  introduced  to 
the  parents  and  the  young  ladies;  then  we  separated, 
and  I  never  saw  him  or  them  any  m — 

"Here  we  are  at  Farmington,"  said  Twichell, 
interrupting. 

We  left  the  trolley-car  and  tramped  through  the 
mud  a  hundred  yards  or  so  to  the  school,  talking 
about  the  time  we  and  Warner  walked  out  there 
years  ago,  and  the  pleasant  time  we  had. 

We  had  a  visit  with  my  niece  in  the  parlor,  then 
started  for  the  trolley  again.  Outside  the  house  we 
encountered  a  double  rank  of  twenty  or  thirty  of 
Miss  Porter's  young  ladies  arriving  from  a  walk,  and 
we  stood  aside,  ostensibly  to  let  them  have  room  to 
file  past,  but  really  to  look  at  them.  Presently  one 
of  them  stepped  out  of  the  rank  and  said: 

"You  don't  know  me,  Mr.  Twichell,  but  I  know 
your  daughter  and  that  gives  me  the  privilege  of 
shaking  hands  with  you." 

Then  she  put  out  her  hand  to  me,  and  said : 

146 


MENTAL    TELEGRAPHY    AGAIN 

"And  I  wish  to  shake  hands  with  you  too,  Mr. 
Clemens.  You  don't  remember  me,  but  you  were 
introduced  to  me  in  the  arcade  in  Milan  two  years 
and  a  half  ago  by  Lieutenant  H." 

What  had  put  that  story  into  my  head  after  all 
that  stretch  of  time?  Was  it  just  the  proximity  of 
that  young  girl,  or  was  it  merely  an  odd  accident? 


WH3AT    PAUL    BOURGET    THINKS 
OF    US 

HE  reports  the  American  joke  correctly.  In 
Boston  they  ask,  How  much  does  he  know? 
in  New  York,  How  much  is  he  worth?  in  Philadel 
phia,  Who  were  his  parents?  And  when  an  alien 
observer  turns  his  telescope  upon  us — advertisedly 
in  our  own  special  interest — a  natural  apprehension 
moves  us  to  ask,  What  is  the  diameter  of  his  reflector? 
I  take  a  great  interest  in  M.  Bourget's  chapters, 
for  I  know  by  the  newspapers  that  there  are  several 
Americans  who  are  expecting  to  get  a  whole  educa 
tion  out  of  them;  several  who  foresaw,  and  also 
foretold,  that  our  long  night  was  over,  and  a  light 
almost  divine  about  to  break  upon  the  land. 

His  utterances  concerning  us  are  bound  to  be  weighty  and  well 
timed. 

He  gives  us  an  object  lesson  which  should  be  thoughtfully  and 
profitably  studied. 

These  well-considered  and  important  verdicts  were 
of  a  nature  to  restore  public  confidence,  which  had 
been  disquieted  by  questionings  as  to  whether  so 
young  a  teacher  would  be  qualified  to  take  so  large 
a  class  as  seventy  million,  distributed  over  so  exten 
sive  a  school-house  as  America,  and  pull  it  through 
without  assistance. 

148 


WHAT     BOURGET     THINKS     OF     US 

I  was  even  disquieted  myself,  although  I  am  of  a 
cold,  calm  temperament,  and  not  easily  disturbed. 
I  feared  for  my  country.  And  I  was  not  wholly 
tranquilized  by  the  verdicts  rendered  as  above.  It 
seemed  to  me  that  there  was  still  room  for  doubt. 
In  fact,  in  looking  the  ground  over  I  became  more 
disturbed  than  I  was  before.  Many  worrying  ques 
tions  came  up  in  my  mind.  Two  were  prominent. 
Where  had  the  teacher  gotten  his  equipment  ?  What 
was  his  method? 

He  had  gotten  his  equipment  in  France. 

Then  as  to  his  method!  I  saw  by  his  own  inti 
mations  that  he  was  an  Observer,  and  had  a  System 
— that  used  by  naturalists  and  other  scientists.  The 
naturalist  collects  many  bugs  and  reptiles  and  butter 
flies  and  studies  their  ways  a  long  time  patiently. 
By  this  means  he  is  presently  able  to  group  these 
creatures  into  families  and  subdivisions  of  families 
by  nice  shadings  of  differences  observable  in  their 
characters.  Then  he  labels  all  those  shaded  bugs 
and  things  with  nicely  descriptive  group  names,  and 
is  now  happy,  for  his  great  work  is  completed,  and 
as  a  result  he  intimately  knows  every  bug  and  shade 
of  a  bug  there,  inside  and  out.  It  may  be  true,  but 
a  person  who  was  not  a  naturalist  would  feel  safer 
about  it  if  he  had  the  opinion  of  the  bug.  I  think 
it  is  a  pleasant  System,  but  subject  to  error. 

The  Observer  of  Peoples  has  to  be  a  Classifier,  a 
Grouper,  a  Deducer,  a  Generalizer,  a  Psychologizer ; 
and,  first  and  last,  a  Thinker.  He  has  to  be  all  these, 
and  when  he  is  at  home,  observing  his  own  folk,  he 
is  often  able  to  prove  competency.  But  history  has 

149 


MARK     TWAIN 

shown  that  when  he  is  abroad  observing  unfamiliar 
peoples  the  chances  are  heavily  against  him.  He  is 
then  a  naturalist  observing  a  bug,  with  no  more  than 
a  naturalist's  chance  of  being  able  to  tell  the  bug 
anything  new  about  itself,  and  no  more  than  a 
naturalist's  chance  of  being  able  to  teach  it  any 
new  ways  which  it  will  prefer  to  its  own. 

To  return  to  that  first  question.  M.  Bourget,  as 
teacher,  would  simply  be  France  teaching  America. 
It  seemed  to  me  that  the  outlook  was  dark — almost 
Egyptian,  in  fact.  What  would  the  new  teacher, 
representing  France,  teach  us?  Railroading?  No. 
France  knows  nothing  valuable  about  railroading. 
Steamshipping?  No.  France  has  no  superiorities 
over  us  in  that  matter.  Steamboating  ?  No.  French 
steamboating  is  still  of  Fulton's  date — 1809.  Postal 
service?  No.  France  is  a  back  number  there. 
Telegraphy?  No,  we  taught  her  that  ourselves. 
Journalism?  No.  Magazining?  No,  that  is  our 
own  specialty.  Government?  No;  Liberty,  Equal 
ity,  Fraternity,  Nobility,  Democracy,  Adultery — the 
system  is  too  variegated  for  our  climate.  Religion? 
No,  not  variegated  enough  for  our  climate.  Morals? 
No,  we  cannot  rob  the  poor  to  enrich  ourselves. 
Novel-writing?  No.  M.  Bourget  and  the  others 
know  only  one  plan,  and  when  that  is  expurgated 
there  is  nothing  left  of  the  book. 

I  wish  I  could  think  what  he  is  going  to  teach  us. 
Can  it  be  Deportment  ?  But  he  experimented  in  that 
at  Newport  and  failed  to  give  satisfaction,  except 
to  a  few.  Those  few  are  pleased.  They  are  enjoy 
ing  their  joy  as  well  as  they  can.  They  confess 

150 


WHAT     BOURGET     THINKS     OF     US 

their  happiness  to  the  interviewer.  They  feel  pretty 
striped,  but  they  remember  with  reverent  recog 
nition  that  they  had  sugar  between  the  cuts.  True, 
sugar  with  sand  in  it,  but  sugar.  And  true,  they 
had  some  trouble  to  tell  which  was  sugar  and  which 
wras  sand,  because  the  sugar  itself  looked  just  like 
the  sand,  and  also  had  a  gravelly  taste;  still,  they 
knew  that  the  sugar  was  there,  and  would  have 
been  very  good  sugar  indeed  if  it  had  been  screened. 
Yes,  they  are  pleased;  not  noisily  so,  but  pleased; 
invaded,  or  streaked,  as  one  may  say,  with  little 
recurrent  shivers  of  joy — subdued  joy,  so  to  speak, 
not  the  overdone  kind.  And  they  commune  to 
gether,  these,  and  massage  each  other  with  comfort 
ing  sayings,  in  a  sweet  spirit  of  resignation  and 
thankfulness,  mixing  these  elements  in  the  same 
proportions  as  the  sugar  and  the  sand,  as  a  memo 
rial,  and  saying,  the  one  to  the  other,  and  to  the 
interviewer:  "It  was  severe — yes,  it  was  bitterly 
severe;  but  oh,  how  true  it  was;  and  it  will  do  us 
so  much  good!" 

If  it  isn't  Deportment,  what  is  left?  It  was  at 
this  point  that  I  seemed  to  get  on  the  right  track  at 
last.  M.  Bourget  would  teach  us  to  know  ourselves; 
that  was  it:  he  would  reveal  us  to  ourselves.  That 
would  be  an  education.  He  would  explain  us  to 
ourselves.  Then  we  should  understand  ourselves; 
and  after  that  be  able  to  go  on  more  intelligently. 

It  seemed  a  doubtful  scheme.     He  could  explain 

us  to  himself. — that  would  be  easy.    That  would  be 

the  same  as  the  naturalist  explaining  the  bug  to 

himself.     But  to  explain  the  bug  to  the  bug — that 

ii  151 


MARK    TWAIN 

is  quite  a  different  matter.  The  bug  may  not  know 
himself  perfectly,  but  he  knows  himself  better  than 
the  naturalist  can  know  him,  at  any  rate. 

A  foreigner  can  photograph  the  exteriors  of  a 
nation,  but  I  think  that  that  is  as  far  as  he  can  get. 
I  think  that  no  foreigner  can  report  its  interior — its 
soul,  its  life,  its  speech,  its  thought.  I  think. that  a 
knowledge  of  these  things  is  acquirable  in  only  one 
way — not  two  or  four  or  six — absorption;  years  and 
years  of  unconscious  absorption;  years  and  years  of 
intercourse  with  the  life  concerned;  of  living  it, 
indeed;  sharing  personally  in  its  shames  and  prides, 
its  joys  and  griefs,  its  loves  and  hates,  its  prosperities 
and  reverses,  its  shows  and  shabbinesses,  its  deep 
patriotisms,  its  whirlwinds  of  political  passion,  its 
adorations — of  flag,  and  heroic  dead,  and  the  glory 
of  the  national  name.  Observation?  Of  what  real 
value  is  it?  One  learns  peoples  through  the  heart, 
not  the  eyes  or  the  intellect. 

There  is  only  one  expert  who  is  qualified  to  ex 
amine  the  souls  and  the  life  of  a  people  and  make  a 
valuable  report — the  native  novelist.  This  expert  is 
so  rare  that  the  most  populous  country  can  never 
have  fifteen  conspicuously  and  confessedly  compe 
tent  ones  in  stock  at  one  time.  This  native  specialist 
is  not  qualified  to  begin  work  until  he  has  been 
absorbing  during  twenty-five  years.  How  much  of 
his- competency  is  derived  from  conscious  "observa 
tion"?  The  amount  is  so  slight  that  it  counts  for 
next  to  nothing  in  the  equipment.  Almost  the 
whole  capital  of  the  novelist  is  the  slow  accumula 
tion  of  wnconscious  observation — absorption.  The 

152 


WHAT     BOURGET    THINKS     OF     US 

native  expert's  intentional  observation  of  manners, 
speech,  character,  and  ways  of  life  can  have  value, 
for  the  native  knows  what  they  mean  without  having 
to  cipher  out  the  meaning.  But  I  should  be  aston 
ished  to  see  a  foreigner  get  at  the  right  meanings, 
catch  the  elusive  shades  of  these  subtle  things. 
Even  the  native  novelist  becomes  a  foreigner,  with 
a  foreigner's  limitations,  when  he  steps  from  the 
state  whose  life  is  familiar  to  him  into  a  state  whose 
life  he  has  not  lived.  Bret  Harte  got  his  California 
and  his  Calif ornians  by  unconscious  absorption,  and 
put  both  of  them  into  his  tales  alive.  But  when  he 
came  from  the  Pacific  to  the  Atlantic  and  tried  to 
do  Newport  life  from  study — conscious  observation 
— his  failure  was  absolutely  monumental.  Newport 
is  a  disastrous  place  for  the  unacclimated  observer, 
evidently. 

To  return  to  novel-building.  Does  the  native 
novelist  try  to  generalize  the  nation?  No,  he  lays 
plainly  before  you  the  ways  and  speech  and  life  of  a 
few  people  grouped  in  a  certain  place — his  own 
place — and  that  is  one  book.  In  time  he  and  his 
brethren  will  report  to  you  the  life  and  the  people 
of  the  whole  nation — the  life  of  a  group  in  a  New 
England  village;  in  a  New  York  village;  in  a  Texan 
village;  in  an  Oregon  village;  in  villages  in  fifty 
states  and  territories;  then  the  farm-life  in  fifty 
states  and  territories;  a  hundred  patches  of  life  and 
groups  of  people  in  a  dozen  widely  separated  cities. 
And  the  Indians  will  be  attended  to;  and  the  cow 
boys  ;  and  the  gold  and  silver  miners ;  and  the  negroes ; 
and  the  Idiots  and  Congressmen;  and  the  Irish,  the 


MARK    TWAIN 

Germans,  the  Italians,  the  Swedes,  the  French,  the 
Chinamen,  the  Greasers;  and  the  Catholics,  the 
Methodists,  the  Presbyterians,  the  Congregation- 
alists,  the  Baptists,  the  Spiritualists,  the  Mormons, 
the  Shakers,  the  Quakers,  the  Jews,  the  Campbell- 
ites,  the  infidels,  the  Christian  Scientists,  the  Mind- 
Curists,  the  Faith-Curists,  the  train-robbers,  the 
White  Caps,  the  Moonshiners.  And  when  a  thou 
sand  able  novels  have  been  written,  there  you  have 
the  soul  of  the  people,  the  life  of  the  people,  the 
speech  of  the  people;  and  not  anywhere  else  can 
these  be  had.  And  the  shadings  of  character,  man 
ners,  feelings,  ambitions,  will  be  infinite. 

The  nature  of  a  people  is  always  of  a  similar  shade  in  its 
vices  and  its  virtues,  in  its  frivolities  and  in  its  labor.  //  is 
this  physiognomy  which  it  is  necessary  to  discover,  and  every 
document  is  good,  from  the  hall  of  a  casino  to  the  church,  from 
the  foibles  of  a  fashionable  woman  to  the  suggestions  of  a  revo 
lutionary  leader.  I  am  therefore  quite  sure  that  this  American 
soid,  the  principal  interest  and  the  great  object  of  my  voyage, 
appears  behind  the  records  of  Newport  for  those  who  choose 
to  see  it. — M.  Paul  Bourget. 

[The  italics  are  mine.]  It  is  a  large  contract 
which  he  has  undertaken.  ''Records"  is  a  pretty 
poor  word  there,  but  I  think  the  use  of  it  is  due  to 
hasty  translation.  In  the  original  the  word  is  fastes. 
I  think  M.  Bourget  meant  to  suggest  that  he  ex 
pected  to  find  the  great  "American  soul"  secreted 
behind  the  ostentations  of  Newport;  and  that  he  was 
going  to  get  it  out  and  examine  it,  and  generalize  it, 
and  psychologize  it,  and  make  it  reveal  to  him  its 
hidden  vast  mystery:  "the  nature  of  the  people"  of 


WHAT     BOURGET     THINKS     OF 

the  United  States  of  America.  We  have  been  ac 
cused  of  being  a  nation  addicted  to  inventing  wild 
schemes.  I  trust  that  we  shall  be  allowed  to  retire 
to  second  place  now. 

There  isn't  a  single  human  characteristic  that  can 
be  safely  labeled  ''American."  There  isn't  a  single 
human  ambition,  or  religious  trend,  or  drift  of 
thought,  or  peculiarity  of  education,  or  code  of 
principles,  or  breed  of  folly,  or  style  of  conversa 
tion,  or  preference  for  a  particular  subject  for  dis 
cussion,  or  form  of  legs  or  trunk  or  head  or  face  or 
expression  or  complexion,  or  gait,  or  dress,  or  man 
ners,  or  disposition,  or  any  other  human  detail, 
inside  or  outside,  that  can  rationally  be  generalized 
as  "American." 

Whenever  you  have  found  what  seems  to  be  an 
" American"  peculiarity,  you  have  only  to  cross  a 
frontier  or  two,  or  go  down  or  up  in  the  social  scale, 
and  you  perceive  that  it  has  disappeared.  And  you 
can  cross  the  Atlantic  and  find  it  again.  There 
may  be  a  Newport  religious  drift,  or  sporting  drift, 
or  conversational  style  or  complexion,  or  cut  of  face, 
but  there  are  entire  empires  in  America,  north, 
south,  east,  and  west,  where  you  could  not  find 
your  duplicates.  It  is  the  same  with  everything 
else  which  one  might  propose  to  call  "American." 
M.  Bourget  thinks  he  has  found  the  American 
Coquette.  If  he  had  really  found  her  he  would  also 
have  found,  I  am  sure,  that  she  was  not  new,  that 
she  exists  in  other  lands  in  the  same  forms,  and 
with  the  same  frivolous  heart  and  the  same  ways 
and  impulses.  I  think  this  because  I  have  seen  our 

i55 


MARK    TWAIN 

coquette;  I  have  seen  her  in  life;  better  still,  I  have 
seen  her  in  our  novels,  and  seen  her  twin  in  foreign 
novels.  I  wish  M.  Bourget  had  seen  ours.  He 
thought  he  saw  her.  And  so  he  applied  his  System 
to  her.  She  was  a  Species.  So  he  gathered  a  num 
ber  of  samples  of  what  seemed  to  be  her,  and  put 
them  under  his  glass,  and  divided  them  into  groups 
which  he  calls  "types,"  and  labeled  them  in  his 
usual  scientific  way  with  "formulas" — brief,  sharp 
descriptive  flashes  that  make  a  person  blink,  some 
times,  they  are  so  sudden  and  vivid.  As  a  rule  they 
are  pretty  far-fetched,  but  that  is  not  an  important 
matter;  they  surprise,  they  compel  admiration,  and 
I  notice  by  some  of  the  comments  which  his  efforts 
have  called  forth  that  they  deceive  the  unwary. 
Here  are  a  few  of  the  coquette  variants  which  he  has 
grouped  and  labeled : 

THE  COLLECTOR. 

THE  EQUILIBREE. 

THE  PROFESSIONAL  BEAUTY. 

THE  BLUFFER. 

THE  GIRL-BOY. 

If  he  had  stopped  with  describing  these  characters 
we  should  have  been  obliged  to  believe  that  they 
exist ;  that  they  exist,  and  that  he  has  seen  them  and 
spoken  with  them.  But  he  did  not  stop  there;  he 
went  further  and  furnished  to  us  light-throwing 
samples  of  their  behavior,  and  also  light-throwing 
samples  of  their  speeches.  He  entered  those  things 
in  his  note-book  without  suspicion,  he  takes  them 
out  and  delivers  them  to  the  world  with  a  candor 
and  simplicity  which  show  that  he  believed  them 


WHAT     BOURGET    THINKS    OF    US 

genuine.  They  throw  altogether  too  much  light. 
They  reveal  to  the  native  the  origin  of  his  find.  I 
suppose  he  knows  how  he  came  to  make  that  novel 
and  captivating  discovery,  by  this  time.  If  he  does 
not,  any  American  can  tell  him — any  American 
to  whom  he  will  show  his  anecdotes.  It  was  "put 
up"  on  him,  as  we  say.  It  was  a  jest — to  be  plain, 
it  was  a  series  of  frauds.  To  my  mind  it  was  a  poor 
sort  of  jest,  witless  and  contemptible.  The  players 
of  it  have  their  reward,  such  as  it  is;  they  have 
exhibited  the  fact  that  whatever  they  may  be  they 
are  not  ladies.  M.  Bourget  did.  not  discover  a  type 
of  coquette;  he  merely  discovered  a  type  of  prac 
tical  joker.  One  may  say  the  type  of  practical 
joker,  for  these  people  are  exactly  alike  all  over  the 
world.  Their  equipment  is  always  the  same:  a 
vulgar  mind,  a  puerile  wit,  a  cruel  disposition  as  a 
rule,  and  always  the  spirit  of  treachery. 

In  his  Chapter  IV.  M.  Bourget  has  two  or  three 
columns  gravely  devoted  to  the  collating  and  ex 
amining  and  psychologizing  of  these  sorry  little 
frauds.  One  is  not  moved  to  laugh.  There  is  nothing 
funny  in  the  situation;  it  is  only  pathetic.  The 
stranger  gave  those  people  his  confidence,  and  they 
dishonorably  treated  him  in  return. 

But  one  must  be  allowed  to  suspect  that  M 
Bourget  was  a  little  to  blame  himself.  Even  a 
practical  joker  has  some  little  judgment.  He  has 
to  exercise  some  degree  of  sagacity  in  selecting  his 
prey  if  he  would  save  himself  from  getting  into 
trouble.  In  my  time  I  have  seldom  seen  such  daring 
things  marketed  at  any  price  as  these  conscienceless 


MARK    TWAIN 

folk  have  worked  off  at  par  on  this  confiding  ob 
server.  It  compels  the  conviction  that  there  was 
something  about  him  that  bred  in  those  speculators 
a  quite  unusual  sense  of  safety,  and  encouraged 
them  to  strain  their  powers  in  his  behalf.  They 
seem  to  have  satisfied  themselves  that  all  he  wanted 
was  "significant"  facts,  and  that  he  was  not  accus 
tomed  to  examine  the  source  whence  they  pro 
ceeded.  It  is  plain  that  there  was  a  sort  of  con 
spiracy  against  him  almost  from  the  start  —  a 
conspiracy  to  freight  him  up  with  all  the  strange 
extravagances  those  people's  decayed  brains  could 
invent. 

The  lengths  to  which  they  went  are  next  to 
incredible.  They  told  him  things  which  surely  would 
have  excited  any  one  else's  suspicion,  but  they  did 
not  excite  his.  Consider  this: 

There  is  not  in  all  the  United  States  an  entirely  nude  statue. 

If  an  angel  should  come  down  and  say  such  a 
thing  about  heaven,  a  reasonably  cautious  observer 
would  take  that  angel's  number  and  inquire  a  little 
"further  before  he  added  it  to  his  catch.  What  does 
the  present  observer  do?  Adds  it.  Adds  it  at  once. 
Adds  it,  and  labels  it  with  this  innocent  comment : 

This  small  fact  is  strangely  significant. 

It  does  seem  to  me  that  this  kind  of  observing  is 
defective. 

Here  is  another  curiosity  which  some  liberal 
person  made  him  a  present  of.  I  should  think  it 
ought  to  have  disturbed  the  deep  slumber  of  his 

158 


WHAT    BOURGET    THINKS    OF    US 

suspicion  a  little,  but  it  didn't.  It  was  a  note  from 
a  fog-horn  for  strenuousness,  it  seems  to  me,  but 
the  doomed  voyager  did  not  catch  it.  If  he  had  but 
caught  it,  it  would  have  saved  him  from  several 
disasters : 

If  the  American  knows  that  you  are  traveling  to  take  notes, 
he  is  interested  in  it,  and  at  the  same  time  rejoices  in  it,  as  in 
a  tribute. 

Again,  this  is  defective  observation.  It  is  human 
to  like  to  be  praised;  one  can  even  notice  it  in  the 
French.  But  it  is  not  human  to  like  to  be  ridiculed, 
even  when  it  comes  in  the  form  of  a  "tribute."  I 
think  a  little  psychologizing  ought  to  have  come  in 
there.  Something  like  this:  A  dog  does  not  like  to 
be  ridiculed,  a  redskin  does  not  like  to  be  ridiculed, 
a  negro  does  not  like  to  be  ridiculed,  a  Chinaman 
does  not  like  to  be  ridiculed ;  let  us  deduce  from  these 
significant  facts  this  formula:  the  American's  grade 
being  higher  than  these,  and  the  chain  of  argument 
stretching  unbroken  all  the  way  up  to  him,  there 
is  room  for  suspicion  that  the  person  who  said  the 
American  likes  to  be  ridiculed,  and  regards  it  as  a 
tribute,  is  not  a  capable  observer. 

I  feel  persuaded  that  in  the  matter  of  psycholo 
gizing,  a  professional  is  too  apt  to  yield  to  the  fasci 
nations  of  the  loftier  regions  of  that  great  art,  to  the 
neglect  of  its  lowlier  walks.  Every  now  and  then, 
at  half-hour  intervals,  M.  Bourget  collects  a  hatful 
of  airy  inaccuracies  and  dissolves  them  in  a  panful 
of  assorted  abstractions,  and  runs  the  charge  into 
a  mold  and  turns  you  out  a  compact  principle 
which  will  explain  an  American  girl,  or  an  Amer- 


MARK    TWAIN 

lean  woman,  or  why  new  people  yearn  for  old  things, 
or  any  other  impossible  riddle  which  a  person  wants 
answered. 

It  seems  to  be  conceded  that  there  are  a  few 
human  peculiarities  that  can  be  generalized  and 
located  here  and  there  in  the  world  and  named  by 
the  name  of  the  nation  where  they  are  found.  I 
wonder  what  they  are.  Perhaps  one  of  them  is 
temperament.  One  speaks  of  French  vivacity  and 
German  gravity  and  English  stubbornness.  There 
is  no  American  temperament.  The  nearest  that  one 
can  come  at  it  is  to  say  there  are  two — the  com 
posed  Northern  and  the  impetuous  Southern;  and 
both  are  found  in  other  countries.  Morals?  Purity 
of  women  may  fairly  be  called  universal  with  us, 
but  that  is  the  case  in  some  other  countries.  We 
have  no  monopoly  of  it;  it  cannot  be  named  Amer 
ican.  I  think  that  there  is  but  a  single  specialty  with 
us,  only  one  thing  that  can  be  called  by  the  wide 
name  " American.'*  That  is  the  national  devotion 
to  ice-water.  All  Germans  drink  beer,  but  the 
British  nation  drinks  beer,  too;  so  neither  of  those 
peoples  is  the  beer-drinking  nation.  I  suppose  we 
do  stand  alone  in  having  a  drink  that  nobody  likes 
but  ourselves.  When  we  have  been  a  month  in 
Europe  we  lose  our  craving  for  it,  and  we  finally 
tell  the  hotel  folk  that  they  needn't  provide  it  any 
more.  Yet  we  hardly  touch  our  native  shore  again, 
winter  or  summer,  before  we  are  eager  for  it.  The 
reasons  for  this  state  of  things  have  not  been  psychol 
ogized  yet.  I  drop  the  hint  and  say  no  more. 

It  is  my  belief  that  there  are  some  "national" 

169 


WHAT     BOURGET    THINKS     OF     US 

traits  and  things  scattered  about  the  world  that  are 
mere  superstitions,  frauds  that  have  lived  so  long 
that  they  have  the  solid  look  of  facts.  One  of  them 
is  the  dogma  that  the  French  are  the  only  chaste 
people  in  the  world.  Ever  since  I  arrived  in  France 
this  last  time  I  have  been  accumulating  doubts  about 
that ;  and  before  I  leave  this  sunny  land  again  I  will 
gather  in  a  few  random  statistics  and  psychologize 
the  plausibilities  out  of  it.  If  people  are  to  come 
over  to  America  and  find  fault  with  our  girls  and 
our  women,  and  psychologize  every  little  thing  they 
do,  and  try  to  teach  them  how  to  behave,  and  how 
to  cultivate  themselves  up  to  where  one  cannot  tell 
them  from  the  French  model,  I  intend  to  find  out 
whether  those  missionaries  are  qualified  or  not.  A 
nation  ought  always  to  examine  into  this  detail 
before  engaging  the  teacher  for  good.  This  last  one 
has  let  fall  a  remark  which  renewed  those  doubts  of 
mine  when  I  read  it: 

In  our  high  Parisian  existence,  for  instance,  we  find  applied 
to  arts  and  luxury,  and  to  debauchery,  all  the  powers  and  all 
the  weaknesses  of  the  French  soul. 

You  see,  it  amounts  to  a  trade  with  the  French 
soul;  a  profession;  a  science;  the  serious  business  of 
life,  so  to  speak,  in  our  high  Parisian  existence.  I 
do  not  quite  like  the  look  of  it.  I  question  if  it  can 
be  taught  with  profit  in  our  country,  except,  of 
course,  to  those  pathetic,  neglected  minds  that  are 
waiting  there  so  yearningly  for  the  education  which 
M.  B  our  get  is  going  to  furnish  them  from  the  serene 
summits  of  our  high  Parisian  life. 


MARK    TWAIN 

I  spoke  a  moment  ago  of  the  existence  of  some 
superstitions  that  have  been  parading  the  world  as 
facts  this  long  time.  For  instance,  consider  the 
Dollar.  The  world  seems  to  think  that  the  love  of 
money  is  " American";  and  that  the  mad  desire  to 
get  suddenly  rich  is  "American."  I  believe  that 
both  of  these  things  are  merely  and  broadly  human, 
not  American  monopolies  at  all.  The  love  of  money 
is  natural  to  all  nations,  for  money  is  a  good  and 
strong  friend.  I  think  that  this  love  has  existed 
everywhere,  ever  since  the  Bible  called  it  the  root 
of  all  evil. 

I  think  that  the  reason  why  we  Americans  seem 
to  be  so  addicted  to  trying  to  get  rich  suddenly  is 
merely  because  the  opportunity  to  make  promising 
efforts  in  that  direction  has  offered  itself  to  us  with 
a  frequency  out  of  all  proportion  to  the  European 
experience.  For  eighty  years  this  opportunity  has 
been  offering  itself  in  one  new  town  or  region  after 
another  straight  westward,  step  by  step,  all  the  way 
from  the  Atlantic  coast  to  the  Pacific.  When  a 
mechanic  could  buy  ten  town  lots  on  tolerably  long 
credit  for  ten  months'  savings  out  of  his  wages,  and 
reasonably  expect  to  sell  them  in  a  couple  of  years 
for  ten  times  what  he  gave  for  them,  it  was  human 
for  him  to  try  the  venture,  and  he  did  it  no  matter 
what  his  nationality  was.  He  would  have  done  it  in 
Europe  or  China  if  he  had  had  the  same  chance. 

In  the  flush  times  in  the  silver  regions  a  cook  or 
any  other  humble  worker  stood  a  very  good  chance 
to  get  rich  out  of  a  trifle  of  money  risked  in  a  stock 
deal;  and  that  person  promptly  took  that  risk,  no 

163 


WHAT    BOURGET    THINKS    OF     US 

matter  what  his  or  her  nationality  might  be.  I  was 
there,  and  saw  it. 

But  these  opportunities  have  not  been  plenty  in 
our  Southern  states ;  so  there  you  have  a  prodigious 
region  where  the  rush  for  sudden  wealth  is  almost  an 
unknown  thing — and  has  been,  from  the  beginning. 

Europe  has  offered  few  opportunities  for  poor 
Tom,  Dick,  and  Harry;  but  when  she  has  offered 
one,  there  has  been  no  noticeable  difference  between 
European  eagerness  and  American.  England  saw 
this  in  the  wild  days  of  the  Railroad  King;  France 
saw  it  in  1720 — time  of  Law  and  the  Mississippi 
Bubble.  I  am  sure  I  have  never  seen  in  the  gold 
and  silver  mines  any  madness,  fury,  frenzy  to  get 
suddenly  rich  which  was  even  remotely  comparable 
to  that  which  raged  in  France  in  the  Bubble  day. 
If  I  had  a  cyclopedia  here  I  could  turn  to  that 
memorable  case,  and  satisfy  nearly  anybody  that 
the  hunger  for  the  sudden  dollar  is  no  more  "Ameri 
can"  than  it  is  French.  And  if  I  could  furnish  an 
American  opportunity  to  staid  Germany,  I  think  I 
could  wake  her  up  like  a  house  afire. 

But  I  must  return  to  the  Generalizations,  Psychol- 
ogizings,  Deductions.  When  M.  Bourget  is  ex 
ploiting  these  arts,  it  is  then  that  he  is  peculiarly  and 
particularly  himself.  His  ways  are  wholly  original 
when  he  encounters  a  trait  or  a  custom  which  is  new 
to  him.  Another  person  would  merely  examine  the 
find,  verify  it,  estimate  its  value,  and  let  it  go;  but 
that  is  not  sufficient  for  M.  Bourget:  he  always 
wants  to  know  why  that  thing  exists,  he  wants  to 
know  how  it  came  to  happen;  and  he  will  not  let  go 

163 


MARK    TWAIN 

of  it  until  he  has  found  out.  And  in  every  instance 
he  will  find  that  reason  where  no  one  but  himself 
would  have  thought  of  looking  for  it.  He  does  not 
seem  to  care  for  a  reason  that  is  not  picturesquely 
located;  one  might  almost  say  picturesquely  and 
impossibly  located. 

He  found  out  that  in  America  men  do  not  try  to 
hunt  down  young  married  women.  At  once,  as 
usual,  he  wanted  to  know  why.  Any  one  could  have 
told  him.  He  could  have  divined  it  by  the  lights 
thrown  by  the  novels  of  the  country.  But  no,  he 
preferred  to  find  out  for  himself.  He  has  a  trustful 
ness  as  regards  men  and  facts  which  is  fine  and 
unusual;  he  is  not  particular  about  the  source  of  a 
fact,  he  is  not  particular  about  the  character  and 
standing  of  the  fact  itself;  but  when  it  comes  to 
pounding  out  the  reason  for  the  existence  of  the  fact, 
he  will  trust  no  one  but  himself. 

In  the  present  instance  here  was  his  fact :  American 
young  married  women  are  not  pursued  by  the  cor- 
rupter;  and  here  was  the  question:  What  is  it  that 
protects  her? 

It  seems  quite  unlikely  that  that  problem  could 
have  offered  difficulties  to  any  but  a  trained  philoso 
pher.  Nearly  any  person  would  have  said  to  M. 
Bourget:  "Oh,  that  is  very  simple.  It  is  very 
seldom  in  America  that  a  marriage  is  made  on  a 
commercial  basis;  our  marriages,  from  the  begin 
ning,  have  been  made  for  love;  and  where  love  is 
there  is  no  room  for  the  corrupter." 

Now,  it  is  interesting  to  see  the  formidable  way  in 
which  M.  Bourget  went  at  that  poor,  humble  little 

164 


WHAT    BOURGET    THINKS    OF     US 

thing.     He  moved  upon  it  in  column — three  col 
umns — and  with  artillery. 

"Two  reasons  of  a  very  different  kind  explain"- 
that  fact 

And  now  that  I  have  got  so  far,  I  am  almost  afraid 
to  say  what  his  two  reasons  are,  lest  I  be  charged 
with  inventing  them.  But  I  will  not  retreat  now;  I 
will  condense  them  and  print  them,  giving  my  word 
that  I  am  honest  and  not  trying  to  deceive  any  one. 

1.  Young  married  women  are  protected  from  the 
approaches   of   the   seducer   in   New   England   and 
vicinity  by  the  diluted  remains  of  a  prudence  created 
by  a  Puritan  law  of  two  hundred  years  ago,  which 
for  a  while  punished  adultery  with  death. 

2.  And  young  married  women  of  the  other  forty 
or  fifty  states  are  protected  by  laws  which  afford 
extraordinary  facilities  for  divorce. 

If  I  have  not  lost  my  mind  I  have  accurately  con 
veyed  those  two  Vesuvian  irruptions  of  philosophy. 
But  the  reader  can  consult  Chapter  IV.  of  Outre- Mer, 
and  decide  for  himself.  Let  us  examine  this  para 
lyzing  Deduction  or  Explanation  by  the  light  of  a 
few  sane  facts. 

1.  This  universality  of  "protection"  has  existed 
in  our  country  from  the  beginning;  before  the  death- 
penalty  existed  in  New  England,  and  during  all  the 
generations  that  have  dragged  by  since  it  was,  annulled. 

2.  Extraordinary  facilities  for  divorce  are  of  such 
recent  creation  that  any  middle-aged  American  can 
remember  a  time  when  such  things  had  not  yet  been 
thought  of. 

Let  us  suppose  that  the  first  easy  divorce  law  went 

165 


MARK    TWAIN 

into  effect  forty  years  ago,  and  got  noised  around  and 
fairly  started  in  business  thirty-five  years  ago,  when 
we  had,  say,  25,000,000  of  white  population.  Let  us 
suppose  that  among  5,000,000  of  them  the  young 
married  women  were  "protected"  by  the  surviving 
shudder  of  that  ancient  Puritan  scare — what  is  M. 
Bourget  going  to  do  about  those  who  lived  among 
the  20,000,000?  They  were  clean  in  their  morals, 
they  were  pure,  yet  there  was  no  easy  divorce  law 
to  protect  them. 

Awhile  ago  I  said  that  M.  Bourget 's  method  of 
truth-seeking — hunting  for  it  in  out-of-the-way 
places — was  new;  but  that  was  an  error.  I  remem 
ber  that  when  Leverrier  discovered  the  Milky  Way, 
he  and  the  other  astronomers  began  to  theorize 
about  it  in  substantially  the  same  fashion  which  M. 
Bourget  employs  in  his  reasonings  about  American 
social  facts  and  their  origin.  Leverrier  advanced  the 
hypothesis  that  the  Milky  Way  was  caused  by 
gaseous  protoplasmic  emanations  from  the  field  of 
Waterloo,  which,  ascending  to  an  altitude  determin- 
able  by  their  own  specific  gravity,  became  luminous 
through  the  development  and  exposure — by  the 
natural  processes  of  animal  decay — of  the  phosphorus 
contained  in  them. 

This  theory  was  warmly  complimented  by  Ptolemy, 
who,  however,  after  much  thought  and  research, 
decided  that  he  could  not  accept  it  as  final.  His 
own  theory  was  that  the  Milky  Way  was  an  emi 
gration  of  lightning-bugs;  and  he  supported  and 
reinforced  this  theorem  by  the  well-known  fact  that 
the  locusts  do  like  that  in  Egypt, 

166 


WHAT    BOURGET    THINKS    OF    US 

Giordano  Bruno  also  was  outspoken  in  his  praises 
of  Leverrier's  important  contribution  to  astronomical 
science,  and  was  at  first  inclined  to  regard  it  as  con 
clusive;  but  later,  conceiving  it  to  be  erroneous,  he 
pronounced  against  it,  and  advanced  the  hypothesis 
that  the  Milky  Way  was  a  detachment  or  corps  of 
stars  which  became  arrested  and  held  in  suspense 
suspensorum  by  refraction  of  gravitation  while  on 
the  march  to  join  their  several  constellations;  a 
proposition  for  which  he  was  afterward  burned  at 
the  stake  in  Jacksonville,  Illinois. 

These  were  all  brilliant  and  picturesque  theories, 
and  each  was  received  with  enthusiasm  by  the  scien 
tific  world;  but  when  a  New  England  farmer,  who 
was  not  a  thinker,  but  only  a  plain  sort  of  person 
who  tried  to  account  for  large  facts  in  simple  ways, 
came  out  with  the  opinion  that  the  Milky  Way  was 
just  common,  ordinary  stars,  and  was  put  where 
it  was  because  God  "wanted  to  hev  it  so,"  the  ad 
mirable  idea  fell  perfectly  flat. 

As  a  literary  artist,  M.  Bourget  is  as  fresh  and 
striking  as  he  is  as  a  scientific  one.  He  says, 
"Above  all,  I  do  not  believe  much  in  anecdotes." 
Why ?  "In  history  they  are  all  false ' ' — a  sufficiently 
broad  statement — "in  literature  all  libelous" — also 
a  sufficiently  sweeping  statement,  coming  from  a 
critic  who  notes  that  we  are  a  people  who  are  pecu 
liarly  extravagant  in  our  language — "and  when  it  is 
a  matter  of  social  life,  almost  all  biased."  It  seems 
to  amount  to  stultification,  almost.  He  has  built 
two  or  three  breeds  of  American  coquettes  out  of 
anecdotes — mainly  "biased"  ones,  I  suppose;  and, 
12  167 


MARK    TWAIN 

as  they  occur  "in  literature,"  furnished  by  his  pen, 
they  must  be  "all  libelous."  Or  did  he  mean  not 
in  literature  or  anecdotes  about  literature  or  liter 
ary  people?  I  am  not  able  to  answer  that.  Perhaps 
the  original  would  be  clearer,  but  I  have  only  the 
translation  of  this  instalment  by  me.  I  think  the 
remark  had  an  intention;  also  that  this  intention 
was  booked  for  the  trip ;  but  that  either  in  the  hurry 
of  the  remark's  departure  it  got  left,  or  in  the  con 
fusion  of  changing  cars  at  the  translator's  frontier  it 
got  side-tracked. 

"But  on  the  other  hand  I  believe  in  statistics; 
and  those  on  divorces  appear  to  me  to  be  most  con 
clusive."  And  he  sets  himself  the  task  of  explain 
ing — in  a  couple  of  columns — the  process  by  which 
Easy-Divorce  conceived,  invented,  originated,  devel 
oped,  and  perfected  an  empire-embracing  condition 
of  sexual  purity  in  the  States.  In  forty  years.  No, 
he  doesn't  state  the  interval.  With  all  his  passion 
for  statistics  he  forgot  to  ask  now  long  it  took  to 
produce  this  gigantic  miracle. 

I  have  followed  his  pleasant  but  devious  trail 
through  those  columns,  but  I  was  not  able  to  get 
hold  of  his  argument  and  find  out  what  it  was.  I 
was  not  even  able  to  find  out  where  it  left  off.  It 
seemed  to  gradually  dissolve  and  flow  off  into  other 
matters.  I  followed  it  with  interest,  for  I  was 
anxious  to  learn  how  easy-divorce  eradicated  adul 
tery  in  America,  but  I  was  disappointed;  I  have  no 
idea  yet  how  it  did  it.  I  only  know  it  didn't.  But 
that  is  not  valuable;  I  knew  it  before. 

Well,  humor  is  theTgreat  thing,  the  saving  thing, 

168 


WHAT    BOURGET    THINKS    OF    US 

after  all.  The  minute  it  crops  up,  all  our  hardnesses 
yield,  all  our  irritations  and  resentments  flit  away, 
and  a  sunny  spirit  takes  their  place.  And  so,  when 
M.  Bourget  said  that  bright  thing  about  our  grand 
fathers,  I  broke  all  up.  I  remember  exploding  its 
American  countermine  once,  under  that  grand  hero, 
Napoleon.  He  was  only  First  Consul  then,  and  I 
was  Consul-General — for  the  United  States,  of 
course;  but  we  were  very  intimate,  notwithstanding 
the  difference  in  rank,  for  I  waived  that.  One  day 
something  offered  the  opening,  and  he  said: 

"Well,  General,  I  suppose  life  can  never  get 
entirely  dull  to  an  American,  because  whenever  he 
can't  strike  up  any  other  way  to  put  in  his  time  he 
can  always  get  away  with  a  few  years  trying  to  find 
out  who  his  grandfather  was!" 

I  fairly  shouted,  for  I  had  never  heard  it  sound 
better;  and  then  I  was  back  at  him  as  quick  as  a 
flash: 

"Right,  your  Excellency!  But  I  reckon  a  French 
man's  got  his  little  stand-by  for  a  dull  time,  too; 
because  when  all  other  interests  fail  he  can  turn  in 
and  see  if  he  can't  find  out  who  his  father  was!" 

Well,  you  should  have  heard  him  just  whoop,  and 
cackle,  and  carry  on!  He  reached  up  and  hit  me 
one  on  the  shoulder,  and  says : 

"Land,  but  it's  good!  It's  im-mensely  good! 
I 'George,  I  never  heard  it  said  so  good  in  my  life 
before!  Say  it  again." 

So  I  said  it  again,  and  he  said  his  again,  and  I 
said  mine  again,  and  then  he  did,  and  then  I  did, 
and  then  he  did,  and  we  kept  on  doing  it,  and  doing 
12  169 


MARK    TWAIN 

it,  and  I  never  had  such  a  good  time,  and  he  said  the 
same.  In  my  opinion  there  isn't  anything  that  is 
as  killing  as  one  of  those  dear  old  ripe  pensioners 
if  you  know  how  to  snatch  it  out  in  a  kind  of  a 
fresh  sort  of  original  way. 

But  I  wish  M.  Bourget  had  read  more  of  our 
novels  before  he  came.  It  is  the  only  way  to  thor 
oughly  understand  a  people.  When  I  found  I  war- 
coming  to  Paris,  I  read  La  Terre. 


A    LITTLE    NOTE   TO    M.   PAUL 
BOURGET 

[The  preceding  squib  was  assailed  in  The  North  American 
Review  in  an  article  entitled  "Mark  Twain  and  Paul  Bourget," 
by  Max  O'Rell.  The  following  little  note  is  a  Rejoinder  to 
that  article.  It  is  possible  that  the  position  assumed  here — that 
M.  Bourget  dictated  the  O'Rell  article  himself — is  untenable.] 

YOU  have  every  right,  my  dear  M.  Bourget,  to 
retort  upon  me  by  dictation,  if  you  prefer  that 
method  to  writing  at  me  with  your  pen;  but  if  I 
may  say  it  without  hurt — and  certainly  I  mean  no 
offense — I  believe  you  would  have  acquitted  your 
self  better  with  the  pen.  With  the  pen  you  are  at 
home;  it  is  your  natural  weapon;  you  use  it  with 
grace,  eloquence,  charm,  persuasiveness,  when  men 
are  to  be  convinced,  and  with  formidable  effect  when 
they  have  earned  a  castigation.  But  I  am  sure  I  see 
signs  in  the  above  article  that  you  are  either  unac 
customed  to  dictating  or  are  out  of  practice.  If  you 
will  reread  it  you  will  notice,  yourself,  that  it  lacks 
definiteness ;  that  it  lacks  purpose;  that  it  lacks  co 
herence;  that  it  lacks  a  subject  to  talk  about;  that 
it  is  loose  and  \vabbly;  that  it  wanders  around;  that 
it  loses  itself  early  and  does  not  find  itself  any  more. 
There  are  some  other  defects,  as  you  will  notice,  but 
I  think  I  have  named  the  main  ones.  I  feel  sure  that 
they  are  all  due  to  your  lack  of  practice  in  dictating. 

171 


MARK    TWAIN 

Inasmuch  as  you  had  not  signed  it  I  had  the  im 
pression  at  first  that  you  had  not  dictated  it.  But 
only  for  a  moment.  Certain  quite  simple  and  defi 
nite  facts  reminded  me  that  the  article  had  to  come 
from  you,  for  the  reason  that  it  could  not  come  from 
any  one  else  without  a  specific  invitation  from  you 
or  from  me.  I  mean,  it  could  not  except  as  an  in 
trusion,  a  transgression  of  the  law  which  forbids 
strangers  to  mix  into  a  private  dispute  between 
friends,  unasked. 

Those  simple  and  definite  facts  were  these:  I  had 
published  an  article  in  this  magazine,  with  you  for 
my  subject;  just  you  yourself;  I  stuck  strictly  to  that 
one  subject,  and  did  not  interlard  any  other.  No 
one,  of  course,  could  call  me  to  account  but  you 
alone,  or  your  authorized  representative.  I  asked 
some  questions — asked  them  of  myself.  I  answered 
them  myself.  My  article  was  thirteen  pages  long, 
and  all  devoted  to  you ;  devoted  to  you,  and  divided 
up  in  this  way:  one  page  of  guesses  as  to  what  sub 
jects  you  would  instruct  us  in,  as  teacher;  one  page 
of  doubts  as  to  the  effectiveness  of  your  method  of 
examining  us  and  our  ways;  two  or  three  pages  of 
criticism  of  your  method,  and  of  certain  results 
which  it  furnished  you;  two  or  three  pages  of  at 
tempts  to  show  the  justness  of  these  same  criticisms ; 
half  a  dozen  pages  made  up  of  slight  fault-findings 
with  certain  minor  details  of  your  literary  work 
manship,  of  extracts  from  your  Outre-Mer  and  com 
ments  upon  them;  then  I  closed  with  an  anecdote. 
I  repeat — for  certain  reasons — that  I  dosed  with  an 
anecdote. 

173 


NOTE    TO    M.    PAUL    BOURGET 

When  I  was  asked  by  this  magazine  if  I  wished  to 
"answer"  a  "reply"  to  that  article  of  mine,  I  said 
"yes,"  and  waited  in  Paris  for  the  proof-sheets  of 
the  "reply"  to  come.  I  already  knew,  by  the 
cablegram,  that  the  "reply"  would  not  be  signed  by 
you,  but  upon  reflection  I  knew  it  would  be  dictated 
by  you,  because  no  volunteer  would  feel  himself  at 
liberty  to  assume  your  championship  in  a  private 
dispute,  unasked,  in  view  of  the  fact  that  you  are 
quite  well  able  to  take  care  of  your  matters  of  that 
sort  yourself  and  are  not  in  need  of  any  one's  help. 
No,  a  volunteer  could  not  make  such  a  venture.  It 
would  be  too  immodest.  Also  too  gratuitously 
generous.  And  a  shade  too  self-sufficient.  No,  he 
could  not  venture  it.  It  would  look  too  much  like 
anxiety  to  get  in  at  a  feast  where  no  plate  had  been 
provided  for  him.  In  fact  he  could  not  get  in  at 
all,  except  by  the  back  way,  and  with  a  false  key; 
that  is  to  say,  a  pretext — a  pretext  invented  for  the 
occasion  by  putting  into  my  mouth  words  which  I 
did  not  use,  and  by  wresting  sayings  of  mine  from 
their  plain  and  true  meaning.  Would  he  resort  to 
methods  like  those  to  get  in?  No;  there  are  no 
people  of  that  kind.  So  then  I  knew  for  a  certainty 
that  you  dictated  the  Reply  yourself.  I  knew  you 
did  it  to  save  yourself  manual  labor. 

And  you  had  the  right,  as  I  have  already  said; 
and  I  am  content — perfectly  content.  Yet  it  would 
have  been  little  trouble  to  you,  and  a  great  kindness 
to  me,  if  you  had  written  your  Reply  all  out  with 
your  own  capable  hand. 

Because  then  it  would  have  replied — and  that  is 
173 


MARK    TWAIN 

really  what  a  Reply  is  for.  Broadly  speaking,  its 
function  is  to  refute — as  you  will  easily  concede. 
That  leaves  something  for  the  other  person  to  take 
hold  of:  he  has  a  chance  to  reply  to  the  Reply,  he 
has  a  chance  to  refute  the  refutation.  This  would 
have  happened  if  you  had  written  it  out  instead  of 
dictating.  Dictating  is  nearly  sure  to  unconcentrate 
the  dictator's  mind,  when  he  is  out  of  practice,  con 
fuse  him,  and  betray  him  into  using  one  set  of 
literary  rules  when  he  ought  to  use  a  quite  different 
set.  Often  it  betrays  him  into  employing  the  RULES 
FOR  CONVERSATION  BETWEEN  A  SHOUTER  AND  A 
DEAF  PERSON — as  in  the  present  case — when  he 
ought  to  employ  the  RULES  FOR  CONDUCTING  DIS 
CUSSION  WITH  A  FAULT-FINDER.  The  great  founda 
tion-rule  and  basic  principle  of  discussion  with  a 
fault-finder  is  relevancy  and  concentration  upon  the 
subject;  whereas  the  great  foundation-rule  and  basic 
principle  governing  conversation  between  a  shouter 
and  a  deaf  person  is  irrelevancy  and  persistent 
desertion  of  the  topic  in  hand.  If  I  may  be  allowed 
to  illustrate  by  quoting  example  IV.,  section  7, 
from  chapter  ix  of  "Revised  Rules  for  Conducting 
Conversation  between  a  Shouter  and  a  Deaf  Per 
son,"  it  will  assist  us  in  getting  a  clear  idea  of  the 
difference  between  the  two  sets  of  rules: 

Shouter.    Did  you  say  his  name  is  WETHERBY? 

Deaf  Person.  Change?  Yes,  I  think  it  will. 
Though  if  it  should  clear  off  I — 

Shouter.     It's  his  NAME  I  want— his  NAME. 

Deaf  Person.  Maybe  so,  maybe  so;  but  it  will 
only  be  a  shower,  I  think. 


NOTE    TO    M.    PAUL    BOURGET 

Shouter.  No,  no,  no !  —  you  have  quite  misun- 
derSTOODme.  If- 

Deaf  Person.  Ah!  GOOD  morning;  I  am  sorry 
you  must  go.  But  call  again,  and  let  me  continue 
to  be  of  assistance  to  you  in  every  way  I  can. 

You  see  it  is  a  perfect  kodak  of  the  article  you 
have  dictated.  It  is  really  curious  and  interesting 
when  you  come  to  compare  it  with  yours;  in  detail, 
with  my  former  article  to  which  it  is  a  Reply  in 
your  hand.  I  talk  twelve  pages  about  your  Ameri 
can  instruction  projects,  and  your  doubtful  scientific 
system,  and  your  painstaking  classification  of  non 
existent  things,  and  your  diligence  and  zeal  and  sin 
cerity,  and  your  disloyal  attitude  toward  anecdotes, 
and  your  undue  reverence  for  unsafe  statistics  and 
for  facts  that  lack  a  pedigree ;  and  you  turn  around 
and  come  back  at  me  with  eight  pages  of  weather. 

I  do  not  see  how  a  person  can  act  so.  It  is  good 
of  you  to  repeat,  with  change  of  language,  in  the 
bulk  of  your  rejoinder,  so  much  of  my  own  article, 
and  adopt  my  sentiments,  and  make  them  over, 
and  put  new  buttons  on;  and  I  like  the  compliment, 
and  am  frank  to  say  so;  but  agreeing  with  a  person 
cripples  controversy  and  ought  not  to  be  allowed. 
It  is  weather;  and  of  almost  the  worst  sort.  It 
pleases  me  greatly  to  hear  you  discourse  with  such 
approval  and  expansiveness  upon  my  text: 

"A  foreigner  can  photograph  the  exteriors  of  a 
nation,  but  I  think  that  is  as  far  as  he  can  get.  I 
think  that  no  foreigner  can  report  its  interior;"1 

*And  you  say:  "A  man  of  average  intelligence,  who  has  passed 
six  months  among  a  people,  cannot  express  opinions  that  are  worth 

175 


MARK    TWAIN 

which  is  a  quite  clear  way  of  saying  that  a  foreigner's 
report  is  only  valuable  when  it  restricts  itself  to 
impressions.  It  pleases  me  to  have  you  follow  my 
lead  in  that  glowing  way,  but  it  leaves  me  nothing 
to  combat.  You  should  give  me  something  to  deny 
and  refute;  I  would  do  as  much  for  you. 

It  pleases  me  to  have  you  playfully  warn  the 
public  against  taking  one  of  your  books  seriously.1 
Because  I  used  to  do  that  cunning  thing  myself  in 
earlier  days.  I  did  it  in  a  prefatory  note  to  a  book 
of  mine  called  Tom  Sawyer. 

NOTICE 

Persons  attempting  to  find  a  motive  in  this  narrative  will  be 
prosecuted;  persons  attempting  to  find  a  moral  in  it  will  be 
banished;  persons  attempting  to  find  a  plot  in  it  will  be  shot. 
BY  ORDER  OF  THE  AUTHOR, 

PER  G.  G.,  CHIEF  OF  ORDNANCE. 

The  kernel  is  the  same  in  both  prefaces,  you 
see — the  public  must  not  take  us  too  seriously.  If 
we  remove  that  kernel  we  remove  the  life-principle, 
and  the  preface  is  a  corpse.  Yes,  it  pleases  me  to 
have  you  use  that  idea,  for  it  is  a  high  compliment. 
But  it  leaves  me  nothing  to  combat;  and  that  is 
damage  to  me. 

jotting  down,  but  he  can  form  impressions  that  are  worth  repeating. 
For  my  part,  I  think  that  foreigners'  impressions  are  more  interesting 
than  native  opinions.  After  all,  such  impressions  merely  mean  'how 
the  country  struck  the  foreigner.'" 

'When  I  published  Jonathan  and  His  Continent,  I  wrote  in  a 
preface  addressed  to  Jonathan:  "If  ever  you  should  insist  on  seeing 
in  this  little  volume  a  serious  study  of  your  country  and  of  your 
countrymen,  I  warn  you  that  your  world-wide  fame  for  humor  will 
t?<?  exploded," 


NOTE    TO    M.    PAUL    BOURGET 

Am  I  seeming  to  say  that  your  Reply  is  not  a 
reply  at  all,  M.  Bourget?  If  so,  I  must  modify 
that;  it  is  too  sweeping.  For  you  have  furnished  a 
general  answer  to  my  inquiry  as  to  what  France — 
through  you — can  teach  us.1  It  is  a  good  answer. 
It  relates  to  manners,  customs,  and  morals — three 
things  concerning  which  we  can  never  have  ex 
haustive  and  determinate  statistics,  and  so  the  ver 
dicts  delivered  upon  them  must  always  lack  con- 
clusiveness  and  be  subject  to  revision ;  but  you  have 
stated  the  truth,  possibly,  as  nearly  as  any  one 
could  do  it,  in  the  circumstances.  But  why  did  you 
choose  a  detail  of  my  question  which  could  be  an 
swered  only  with  vague  hearsay  evidence,  and  go 

»"What  could  France  teach  America?"  exclaims  Mark  Twain. 
France  can  teach  America  all  the  higher  pursuits  of  life,  and  there 
is  more  artistic  feeling  and  refinement  in  a  street  of  French  working- 
men  than  in  many  avenues  inhabited  by  American  millionaires.  She 
can  teach  her,  not  perhaps  how  to  work,  but  how  to  rest,  how  to 
live,  how  to  be  happy.  She  can  teach  her  that  the  aim  of  life  is  not 
money-making,  but  that  money-making  is  only  a  means  to  obtain 
an  end.  She  can  teach  her  that  wives  are  not  expensive  toys,  but 
useful  partners,  friends,  and  confidants,  who  should  always  keep 
men  under  their  wholesome  influence  by  their  diplomacy,  their  tact, 
their  common  sense,  without  bumptiousness.  These  qualities, 
added  to  the  highest  standard  of  morality  (not  angular  and  morose, 
but  cheerful  morality),  are  conceded  to  Frenchwomen  by  whoever 
knows  something  of  French  life  outside  of  the  Paris  boulevards,  and 
Mark  Twain's  ill-natured  sneer  cannot  even  so  much  as  stain  them. 

I  might  tell  Mark  Twain  that  in  France  a  man  who  was  seen  tipsy 
in  his  club  would  immediately  see  his  name  canceled  from  member 
ship.  A  man  who  had  settled  his  fortune  on  his  wife  to  avoid 
meeting  his  creditors  would  be  refused  admission  into  any  decent 
society.  Many  a  Frenchman  has  blown  his  brains  out  rather  than 
declare  himself  a  bankrupt.  Now  would  Mark  Twain  remark  to 
this:  "An  American  is  not  such  a  fool:  when  a  creditor  stands  in  his 
way  he  closes  his  doors,  and  reopens  them  the  following  day.  When 
he  has  been  a.  bankrupt  three  times  he  can  retire  from  business"? 

177 


MARK     TWAIN 

right  by  one  which  could  have  been  answered  with 
deadly  facts? — facts  in  everybody's  reach,  facts 
which  none  can  dispute.  I  asked  what  France  could 
teach  us  about  government.  I  laid  myself  pretty 
wide  open,  there;  and  I  thought  I  was  handsomely 
generous,  too,  when  I  did  it.  France  can  teach 
us  how  to  levy  village  and  city  taxes  which  distrib 
ute  the  burden  with  a  nearer  approach  to  perfect 
fairness  than  is  the  case  in  any  other  land;  and  she 
can  teach  us  the  wisest  and  surest  system  of  col 
lecting  them  that  exists.  She  can  teach  us  how  to 
elect  a  President  in  a  sane  way ;  and  also  how  to  do 
it  without  throwing  the  country  into  earthquakes 
and  convulsions  that  cripple  and  embarrass  business, 
stir  up  party  hatred  in  the  hearts  of  men,  and  make 
peaceful  people  wish  the  term  extended  to  thirty 
years.  France  can  teach  us — but  enough  of  that 
part  of  the  question.  And  what  else  can  France 
teach  us?  She  can  teach  us  all  the  fine  arts — and 
does.  She  throws  open  her  hospitable  art  acade 
mies,  and  says  to  us,  "Come" — and  we  come, 
troops  and  troops  of  our  young  and  gifted;  and  she 
sets  over  us  the  ablest  masters  in  the  world  and 
bearing  the  greatest  names;  and  she  teaches  us  all 
that  we  are  capable  of  learning,  and  persuades  us 
and  encourages  us  with  prizes  and  honors,  much 
as  if  we  were  somehow  children  of  her  own;  and 
when  this  noble  education  is  finished  and  we  are 
ready  to  carry  it  home  and  spread  its  gracious 
ministries  abroad  over  our  nation,  and  we  come 
with  homage  and  gratitude  and  ask  France  for  the 
bill — there  is  nothing  to  pay.  And  in  return  for  this 

I78 


NOTE    TO    M.    PAUL    BOURGET 

imperial  generosity,  what  does  America  do?  She 
charges  a  duty  on  French  works  of  art ! 

I  wish  I  had  your  end  of  this  dispute;  I  should 
have  something  worth  talking  about.  If  you  would 
only  furnish  me  something  to  argue,  something  to 
refute — but  you  persistently  won't.  You  leave 
good  chances  unutilized  and  spend  your  strength 
in  proving  and  establishing  unimportant  things. 
For  instance,  you  have  proven  and  established  these 
eight  facts  here  following — a  good  score  as  to  num 
ber,  but  not  wrorth  while : 

Mark  Twain  is — 

1.  "Insulting." 

2.  (Sarcastically  speaking)  "This  refined  humor 
ist." 

3.  Prefers  the  manure-pile  to  the  violets. 

4.  Has  uttered  "an  ill-natured  sneer." 

5.  Is  "nasty." 

6.  Needs  a  "lesson  in  politeness  and  good  man 
ners." 

7.  Has  published  a  "nasty  article." 

8.  Has   made   remarks    "unworthy   of   a   gentle 
man."  !     These  are  all  true,  but  really  they  are  not 

1  "It  is  more  funny  than  his  [Mark  Twain's]  anecdote,  and  would 
have  been  less  insulting." 

A  quoted  remark  of  mine  "is  a  gross  insult  to  a  nation  friendly 
to  America." 

"He  has  read  La  Terre,  this  refined  humorist." 

"When  Mark  Twain  visits  a  garden  ...  he  goes  in  the  far-away 
corner  where  the  soil  is  prepared." 

"Mark  Twain's  ill-natured  sneer  cannot  so  much  as  stain  them" 
(the  Frenchwomen). 

"When  he  [Mark  Twain]  takes  his  revenge  he  is  unkind,  unfair, 
bitter,  nasty." 

179 


MARK    TWAIN 

valuable;  no  one  cares  much  for  such  finds.  In 
our  American  magazines  we  recognize  this  and  sup 
press  them.  We  avoid  naming  them.  American 
writers  never  allow  themselves  to  name  them.  It 
would  look  as  if  they  were  in  a  temper,  and  we  hold 
that  exhibitions  of  temper  in  public  are  not  good 
form — except  in  the  very  young  and  inexperienced. 
And  even  if  we  had  the  disposition  to  name  them, 
in  order  to  fill  up  a  gap  when  we  were  short  of  ideas 
and  arguments,  our  magazines  would  not  allow  us  to 
do  it,  because  they  think  that  such  words  sully  then- 
pages.  This  present  magazine  is  particularly  stren 
uous  about  it.  Its  note  to  me  announcing  the  for 
warding  of  your  proof-sheets  to  France  closed  thus 
— for  your  protection: 

" It  is  needless  to  ask  you  to  avoid  anything  that 
he  might  consider  as  personal." 

It  was  well  enough,  as  a  measure  of  precaution, 
but  really  it  was  not  needed.  You  can  trust  me  im 
plicitly,  M.  Bourget;  I  shall  never  call  you  any 
names  in  print  which  I  should  be  ashamed  to  call 
you  with  your  unoffending  and  dearest  ones  present. 

Indeed,  we  are  reserved,  and  particular  in  America 
to  a  degree  which  you  would  consider  exaggerated. 
For  instance,  we  should  not  write  notes  like  that  one 
of  yours  to  a  lady  for  a  small  fault — or  a  large 
one.1  We  should  not  think  it  kind.  No  matter 

"But  not  even  your  nasty  article  on  my  country,  Mark,"  etc. 

"Mark  might  certainly  have  derived  from  it  [M.  Bourget's  book] 
a  lesson  in  politeness  and  good  manners." 

A  quoted  remark  of  mine  is  "unworthy  of  a  gentleman." 

1  When  M.  Paul  Bourget  indulges  in  a  little  chaffing  at  the  expense, 
of  the  Americans,  "who  can  always  get  away  with  a  few  years' 

180 


NOTE    TO    M.    PAUL    BOURGET 

how  much  we  might  have  associated  with  kings  and 
nobilities,  we  should  not  think  it  right  to  crush  her 
with  it  and  make  her  ashamed  of  her  lowlier  walk  in 

trying  to  find  out  who  their  grandfathers  were,'  he  merely  makes 
an  allusion  to  an  American  foible;  but,  forsooth,  what  a  kind  man, 
what  a  humorist  Mark  Twain  is  when  he  retorts  by  calling  France 
a  nation  of  bastards!  How  the  Americans  of  culture  and  refinement 
will  admire  him  for  thus  speaking  in  their  name! 

Snobbery.  ...  I  could  give  Mark  Twain  an  example  of  the 
American  specimen.  It  is  a  piquant  scory.  I  never  published  it 
because  I  feared  my  readers  might  think  that  I  was  giving  them 
a  typical  illustration  of  American  character  instead  of  a  rare  ex 
ception. 

I  was  once  booked  by  my  manager  to  give  a  causerie  in  the  drawing- 
room  of  a  New  York  millionaire.  I  accepted  with  reluctance.  I  do 
not  like  private  engagements.  At  five  o'clock  on  the  day  the 
causerie  was  to  be  given,  the  lady  sent  to  my  manager  to  say  that 
she  would  expect  me  to  arrive  at  nine  o'clock  and  to  speak  for 
about  an  hour.  Then  she  wrote  a  postcript.  •  Many  women  are 
unfortunate  there.  Their  minds  are  full  of  afterthoughts,  and  the 
most  important  part  of  their  letters  is  generally  to  be  found  after 
their  signature.  This  lady's  P.S.  ran  thus:  "I  suppose  he  will  not 
expect  to  be  entertained  after  the  lecture." 

I  fairly  shouted,  as  Mark  Twain  would  say,  and  then,  indulging 
myself  in  a  bit  of  snobbishness,  I  was  back  at  her  as  quick  as  a 
flash— 

"Dear  Madam:  As  a  literary  man  of  some  reputation,  I  have 
many  times  had  the  pleasure  of  being  entertained  by  the  members 
of  the  old  aristocracy  of  France.  I  have  also  many  times  had  the 
pleasure  of  being  entertained  by  the  members  of  the  old  aristocracy 
of  England.  If  it  may  interest  you,  I  can  even  tell  you  that  I  have 
several  times  had  the  honor  of  being  entertained  by  royalty;  but 
my  ambition  has  never  been  so  wild  as  to  expect  that  one  day  I 
might  be  entertained  by  the  aristocracy  of  New  York.  No,  I  do 
not  expect  to  be  entertained  by  you,  nor  do  I  want  you  to  expect  me 
to  entertain  you  and  your  friends  to-night,  for  I  decline  to  keep  the 
engagement." 

Now,  I  could  fill  a  book  on  America  with  reminiscences  of  this 
sort,  adding  a  few  chapters  on  bosses  and  boodlers,  on  New  York 
chronique  scandaleuse,  on  the  tenement  houses  of  the  large  cities, 
on  the  gambling-hells  of  Denver,  and  the  dens  of  San  Francisco,  and 
what  not!  But  not  even  your  nasty  article  on  my  country,  Mark, 
will  make  me  dQ  it, 


MARK    TWAIN 

life;  for  we  have  a  saying,  "Who  humiliates  my 
mother  includes  his  own." 

Do  I  seriously  imagine  you  to  be  the  author  of 
that  strange  letter,  M.  Bourget?  Indeed  I  do  not. 
I  believe  it  to  have  been  surreptitiously  inserted  by 
your  amanuensis  when  your  back  was  turned.  I 
think  he  did  it  with  a  good  motive,  expecting  it  to 
add  force  and  piquancy  to  your  article,  but  it  does 
not  reflect  your  nature,  and  I  know  it  will  grieve 
you  when  you  see  it.  I  also  think  he  interlarded 
many  other  things  which  you  will  disapprove  of 
when  you  see  them.  I  am  certain  that  all  the  harsh 
names  discharged  at  me  come  from  him,  not  you. 
No  doubt  you  could  have  proved  me  entitled  to 
them  with  as  little  trouble  as  it  has  cost  him  to  do  it, 
but  it  would  have  been  your  disposition  to  hunt 
game  of  a  higher  quality. 

Why,  I  even  doubt  if  it  is  you  who  furnish  me  all 
that  excellent  information  about  Balzac  and  those 
others.1  All  this  in  simple  justice  to  you — and  to 


11 'Now  the  style  of  M.  Bourget  and  many  other  French  writers 
is  apparently  a  closed  letter  to  Mark  Twain;  but  let  us  leave  that 
alone.  Has  he  read  Erckmann-Chatrian,  Victor  Hugo,  Lamartine, 
Edmond  About,  Cherbuliez,  Renan?  Has  he  read  Gustave  Droz's 
Monsieur,  Madame,  et  Bebe,  and  those  books  which  leave  for  a  long 
time  a  perfume  about  you?  Has  he  read  the  novels  of  Alexandra 
Dumas,  Eugene  Sue,  George  Sand,  and  Balzac?  Has  he  read  Victor 
Hugo's  Les  Miserables  and  Notre  Dame  de  Paris?  Has  he  read  or 
heard  the  plays  of  Sandeau,  Augier,  Dumas,  and  Sardou,  the  works 
of  those  Titans  of  modern  literature,  whose  names  will  be  household 
words  all  over  the  world  for  hundreds  of  years  to  come?  He  ha3 
read  La  Terre — this  kind-hearted,  refined  humorist!  When  Mark 
Twain  visits  a  garden  does  he  smell  the  violets,  the  roses,  the  jasmine 
or  the  honeysuckle?  No,  he  goes  in  the  far-away  corner  where  the 
soil  is  prepared.  Hear  what  he  says:  'I  wish  M.  Paul  Bourget  had 

182 


NOTE    TO    M.    PAUL    BOURGET 

me;  for,  to  gravely  accept  those  interlardings  as 
yours  would  be  to  wrong  your  head  and  heart,  and 
at  the  same  time  convict  myself  of  being  equipped 
with  a  vacancy  where  my  penetration  ought  to  be 
lodged. 

And  now  finally  I  must  uncover  the  secret  pain, 
the  wee  sore  from  which  the  Reply  grew — the  anec 
dote  which  closed  my  recent  article — and  consider 
how  it  is  that  this  pimple  has  spread  to  these  can 
cerous  dimensions.  If  any  but  you  had  dictated 
the  Reply,  M.  Bourget,  I  would  know  that  that 
anecdote  was  twisted  around  and  its  intention  mag 
nified  some  hundreds  of  times,  in  order  that  it  might 
be  used  as  a  pretext  to  creep  in  the  back  way.  But 
I  accuse  you  of  nothing — nothing  but  error.  When 
you  say  that  I  "  retort  by  calling  France  a  nation  of 
bastards,"  it  is  an  error.  And  not  a  small  one,  but 
a  large  one.  I  made  no  such  remark,  nor  anything 
resembling  it.  Moreover,  the  magazine  would  not 
have  allowed  me  to  use  so  gross  a  word  as  that. 

You  told  an  anecdote.  A  funny  one — I  admit 
that.  It  hit  a  foible  of  our  American  aristocracy, 
and  it  stung  me — I  admit  that;  it  stung  me  sharp 
ly.  It  was  like  this:  You  found  some  ancient 
portraits  of  French  kings  in  the  gallery  of  one  of  our 
aristocracy,  and  you  said: 

"He  has  the  Grand  Monarch,  but  where  is  the 
portrait  of  his  grandfather?"  That  is,  the  Ameri 
can  aristocrat's  grandfather. 

read  more  of  our  novels  before  he  came.  It  is  the  only  way  to 
thoroughly  understand  a  people.  When  I  found  I  was  coming  to 
Paris  I  read  La  Terre.'  " 

13  l83 


MARK    TWAIN 

Now  that  hits  only  a  few  of  us,  I  grant — just  the 
upper  crust  only — but  it  hits  exceedingly  hard. 

I  wondered  if  there  was  any  way  of  getting  back 
at  you.  In  one  of  your  chapters  I  found  this  chance : 

"In  our  high  Parisian  existence,  for  instance,  we 
find  applied  to  arts  and  luxury,  and  to  debauchery, 
all  the  powers  and  all  the  weaknesses  of  the  French 
soul." 

You  see?  Your  "higher  Parisian"  class — not 
everybody,  not  the  nation,  but  only  the  top  crust  of 
the  nation — applies  to  debauchery  all  the  powers  of 
its  soul. 

I  argued  to  myself  that  that  energy  must  produce 
results.  So  I  built  an  anecdote  out  of  your  remark. 
In  it  I  make  Napoleon  Bonaparte  say  to  me — but 
see  for  yourself  the  anecdote  (ingeniously  clipped 
and  curtailed)  in  paragraph  eleven  of  your  Reply.1 

^o,  I  repeat,  Mark  Twain  does  not  like  M.  Paul  Bourget's  book. 
So  long  as  he  makes  light  fun  of  the  great  French  writer  he  is  at 
home,  he  is  pleasant,  he  is  the  American  humorist  we  know.  When 
he  takes  his  revenge  (and  where  is  the  reason  for  taking  a  revenge?) 
he  is  unkind,  unfair,  bitter,  nasty. 

For  example : 

See  his  answer  to  a  Frenchman  who  jokingly  remarks  to  him: 

"  I  suppose  life  can  never  get  entirely  dull  to  an  American,  because 
whenever  he  can't  strike  up  any  other  way  to  put  in  his  time,  he  can 
always  get  away  with  a  few  years  trying  to  find  out  who  his  grand 
father  was." 

Hear  the  answer: 

"I  reckon  a  Frenchman's  got  his  little  standby  for  a  dull  time, 
too;  because  when  all  other  interests  fail,  he  can  turn  in  and  see  if 
he  can't  find  out  who  his  father  was." 

The  first  remark  is  a  good-humored  bit  of  chaffing  on  American 
snobbery.  I  may  be  utterly  destitute  of  humor,  but  I  call  the 
second  remark  a  gratuitous  charge  of  immorality  hurled  at  the 
French  women — a  remark  unworthy  of  a  man  who  has  the  ear  of 
the  public,  unworthy  of  a  gentleman,  a  gross  insult  to  a  nation 

184 


NOTE    TO    M.    PAUL    BOURGET 

Now,  then,  your  anecdote  about  the  grandfathers 
hurt  me.  Why?  Because  it  had  a  point.  It  wouldn't 
have  hurt  me  if  it  hadn't  had  point.  You  wouldn't 
have  wasted  space  on  it  if  it  hadn't  had  point. 

My  anecdote  has  hurt  you.  Why?  Because  it 
had  point,  I  suppose.  It  wouldn't  have  hurt  you  if 
it  hadn't  had  point.  I  judged  from  your  remark 
about  the  diligence  and  industry  of  the  high  Parisian 
upper  crust  that  it  would  have  some  point,  but  really 
I  had  no  idea  what  a  gold-mine  I  had  struck.  I 
never  suspected  that  the  point  was  going  to  stick 
into  the  entire  nation;  but  of  course  you  know  your 
nation  better  than  I  do,  and  if  you  think  it  punctures 
them  all,  I  have  to  yield  to  your  judgment.  But 
you  are  to  blame,  your  own  self.  Your  remark  mis 
led  me.  I  supposed  the  industry  was  confined  to 
that  little  unnumerous  upper  layer. 

Well,  now  that  the  unfortunate  thing  has  been 
done,  let  us  do  what  we  can  to  undo  it.  There 
must  be  a  way,  M.  Bourget,  and  I  am  willing  to  do 
anything  that  will  help;  for  I  am  as  sorry  as  you 
can  be  yourself. 

I  will  tell  you  what  I  think  will  be  the  very  thing. 
We  will  swap  anecdotes.  I  will  take  your  anecdote 

friendly  to  America,  a  nation  that  helped  Mark  Twain's  ancestors 
in  their  struggle  for  liberty,  a  nation  where  to-day  it  is  enough  to 
say  that  you  are  American  to  see  every  door  open  wide  to  you. 

If  Mark  Twain  was  hard  up  in  search  of  a  French  "chestnut,"  I 
might  have  told  him  the  following  little  anecdote.  It  is  more 
funny  than  his,  and  would  have  been  less  insulting:  Two  little 
street  boys  are  abusing  each  other.  "Ah,  hold  your  tongue,"  says 
one,  "you  ain't  got  no  father." 

"Ain't  got  no  father!"  replied  the  other;  "I've  got  more  fathers 
than  you." 

13  185 


MARK    TWAIN 

and  you  take  mine.  I  will  say  to  the  dukes  and 
counts  and  princes  of  the  ancient  nobility  of  France : 
"Ha,  ha!  You  must  have  a  pretty  hard  time  trying 
to  find  out  who  your  grandfathers  were?'* 

They  will  merely  smile  indifferently  and  not  feel 
hurt,  because  they  can  trace  their  lineage  back 
through  centuries. 

And  you  will  hurl  mine  at  every  individual  in  the 
American  nation,  saying : 

"And  you  must  have  a  pretty  hard  time  trying  to 
find  out  who  your  fathers  were."  They  will  merely 
smile  indifferently,  and  not  feel  hurt,  because  they 
haven't  any  difficulty  in  finding  their  fathers. 

Do  you  get  the  idea?  The  whole  harm  in  the 
anecdotes  is  in  the  point,  you  see;  and  when  we 
swap  them  around  that  way,  they  haven't  any. 

That  settles  it  perfectly  and  beautifully,  and  I  am 
glad  I  thought  of  it.  I  am  very  glad  indeed,  M. 
Bourget;  for  it  was  just  that  little  wee  thing  that 
caused  the  whole  difficulty  and  made  you  dictate  the 
Reply,  and  your  amanuensis  call  me  all  those  hard 
names  which  the  magazines  dislike  so.  And  I  did  it 
all  in  fun,  too,  trying  to  cap  your  funny  anecdote 
with  another  one — on  the  give-and-take  principle, 
you  know — which  is  American.  I  didn't  know 
that  with  the  French  it  was  all  give  and  no  take,  and 
you  didn't  tell  me.  But  now  that  I  have  made 
everything  comfortable  again,  and  fixed  both  anec 
dotes  so  they  can  never  have  any  point  any  more,  I 
know  you  will  forgive  me. 


THE    INVALID'S    STORY 

1SEEM  sixty  and  married,  but  these  effects  are 
due  to  my  condition  and  sufferings,  for  I  am  a 
bachelor,  and  only  forty-one.  It  will  be  hard  for 
you  to  believe  that  I,  who  am  now  but  a  shadow, 
was  a  hale,  hearty  man  two  short  years  ago — a  man 
of  iron,  a  very  athlete ! — yet  such  is  the  simple  truth. 
But  stranger  still  than  this  fact  is  the  way  in  which 
I  lost  my  health.  I  lost  it  through  helping  to  take 
care  of  a  box  of  guns  on  a  two-hundred-mile  railway 
journey  one  winter's  night.  It  is  the  actual  truth, 
and  I  will  tell  you  about  it. 

I  belong  in  Cleveland,  Ohio.  One  winter's  night, 
two  years  ago,  I  reached  home  just  after  dark,  in  a 
driving  snow-storm,  and  the  first  thing  I  heard  when 
I  entered  the  house  was  that  my  dearest  boyhood 
friend  and  schoolmate,  John  B.  Hackett,  had  died 
the  day  before,  and  that  his  last  utterance  had  been 
a  desire  that  I  would  take  his  remains  home  to  his 
poor  old  father  and  mother  in  Wisconsin.  I  was 
greatly  shocked  and  grieved,  but  there  was  no  time  to 
waste  in  emotions;  I  must  start  at  once.  I  took  the 
card,  marked  "Deacon  Levi  Hackett,  Bethlehem, 
Wisconsin,"  and  hurried  off  through  the  whistling 
storm  to  the  railway-station.  Arrived  there  I  found 
the  long  white-pine  box  which  had  been  described  to 

187 


MARK    TWAIN 

me;  I  fastened  the  card  to  it  with  some  tacks,  saw 
it  put  safely  aboard  the  express-car,  and  then  ran 
into  the  eating-room  to  provide  myself  with  a  sand 
wich  and  some  cigars.  When  I  returned,  presently, 
there  was  my  coffin-box  back  again,  apparently,  and 
a  young  fellow  examining  around  it,  with  a  card  in 
his  hands,  and  some  tacks  and  a  hammer!  I  was 
astonished  and  puzzled.  He  began  to  nail  on  his 
card,  and  I  rushed  out  to  the  express-car,  in  a  good 
deal  of  a  state  of  mind,  to  ask  for  an  explanation. 
But  no — there  was  my  box,  all  right,  in  the  express- 
car;  it  hadn't  been  disturbed.  [The  fact  is  that  with 
out  my  suspecting  it  a  prodigious  mistake  had  been 
made.  I  was  carrying  off  a  box  of  guns  which  that 
young  fellow  had  come  to  the  station  to  ship  to  a 
rifle  company  in  Peoria,  Illinois,  and  he  had  got  my 
corpse!]  Just  then  the  conductor  sang  out  "All 
aboard,"  and  I  jumped  into  the  express-car  and  got 
a  comfortable  seat  on  a  bale  of  buckets.  The  ex 
pressman  was  there,  hard  at  work — a  plain  man  of 
fifty,  with  a  simple,  honest,  good-natured  face,  and 
a  breezy,  practical  heartiness  in  his  general  style. 
As  the  train  moved  off  a  stranger  skipped  into  the 
car  and  set  a  package  of  peculiarly  mature  and 
capable  Limburger  cheese  on  one  end  of  my  coffin- 
box — I  mean  my  box  of  guns.  That  is  to  say,  I 
know  now  that  it  was  Limburger  cheese,  but  at  that 
time  I  never  had  heard  of  the  article  in  my  life,  and 
of  course  was  wholly  ignorant  of  its  character. 
Well,  we  sped  through  the  wild  night,  the  bitter 
storm  raged  on,  a  cheerless  misery  stole  over  me,  my 
heart  went  down,  down,  down!  The  old  express- 

188 


THE    INVALID'S    STORY 

man  made  a  brisk  remark  or  two  aoout  the  tempest 
and  the  arctic  weather,  slammed  his  sliding  doors 
to,  and  bolted  them,  closed  his  window  down  tight, 
and  then  went  bustling  around,  here  and  there  and 
yonder,  setting  things  to  rights,  and  all  the  time 
contentedly  humming  "Sweet  By  and  By,"  in  a  low 
tone,  and  flatting  a  good  deal.  Presently  I  began 
to  detect  a  most  evil  and  searching  odor  stealing 
about  on  the  frozen  air.  This  depressed  my  spirits 
still  more,  because  of  course  I  attributed  it  to  my 
poor  departed  friend.  There  was  something  infinitely 
saddening  about  his  calling  himself  to  my  remem 
brance  in  this  dumb,  pathetic  way,  so  it  was  hard  to 
keep  the  tears  back.  Moreover,  it  distressed  me  on 
account  of  the  old  expressman,  who,  I  was  afraid, 
might  notice  it.  However,  he  went  humming  tran 
quilly  on,  and  gave  no  sign;  and  for  this  I  was 
grateful.  Grateful,  yes,  but  still  uneasy;  and  soon 
I  began  to  feel  more  and  more  uneasy  every  minute, 
for  every  minute  that  went  by  that  odor  thickened 
up  the  more,  and  got  to  be  more  and  more  gamey 
and  hard  to  stand.  Presently,  having  got  things 
arranged  to  his  satisfaction,  the  expressman  got  some 
wood  and  made  up  a  tremendous  fire  in  his  stove. 
This  distressed  me  more  than  I  can  tell,  for  I  could 
not  but  feel  that  it  was  a  mistake.  I  was  sure  that 
the  effect  would  be  deleterious  upon  my  poor  de 
parted  friend.  Thompson — the  expressman's  name 
was  Thompson,  as  I  found  out  in  the  course  of  the 
night — now  went  poking  around  his  car,  stopping  up 
whatever  stray  cracks  he  could  find,  remarking  that 
it  didn't  make  any  difference  what  kind  of  anight 

189 


MARK    TWAIN 

it  was  outside,  he  calculated  to  make  us  comfort 
able,  anyway.  I  said  nothing,  but  I  believed  he  was 
not  choosing  the  right  way.  Meantime  he  was 
humming  to  himself  just  as  before;  and  meantime, 
too,  the  stove  was  getting  hotter  and  hotter,  and  the 
place  closer  and  closer.  I  felt  myself  growing  pale 
and  qualmish,  but  grieved  in  silence  and  said  nothing. 
Soon  I  noticed  that  the  "Sweet  By  and  By"  was 
gradually  fading  out;  next  it  ceased  altogether,  and 
there  was  an  ominous  stillness.  After  a  few  moments 
Thompson  said — 

"Pfew!  I  reckon  it  ain't  no  cinnamon  't  I've 
loaded  up  thish-yer  stove  with!" 

He  gasped  once  or  twice,  then  moved  toward  the 
cof — gun-box,  stood  over  that  Limburger  cheese 
part  of  a  moment,  then  came  back  and  sat  down 
near  me,  looking  a  good  deal  impressed.  After  a 
contemplative  pause,  he  said,  indicating  the  box  with 
a  gesture — 

4 'Friend  of  yourn?" 

"Yes,"  I  said  with  a  sigh. 

"He's  pretty  ripe,  ain't  he!" 

Nothing  further  was  said  for  perhaps  a  couple  of 
minutes,  each  being  busy  with  his  own  thoughts; 
then  Thompson  said,  in  a  low,  awed  voice — 

"Sometimes  it's  uncertain  whether  they're  really 
gone  or  not — seem  gone,  you  know — body  warm, 
joints  limber — and  so,  although  you  think  they're 
gone,  you  don't  really  know.  I've  had  cases  in  my 
car.  It's  perfectly  awful,  becuz  you  don't  know 
what  minute  they'll  rise  up  and  look  at  you !"  Then, 
after  a  pause,  and  slightly  lifting  his  elbow  toward 

190 


THE    INVALID'S    STORY 

the  box,—  •" But  he  ain't  in  no  trance!  No,  sir,  I  go 
bail  for  him ! ' ' 

We  sat  some  time,  in  meditative  silence,  listen 
ing  to  the  wind  and  the  roar  of  the  train;  then 
Thompson  said,  with  a  good  deal  of  feeling: 

"Well-a-well,  we've  all  got  to  go,  they  ain't  no 
getting  around  it.  Man  that  is  born  of  woman  is  of 
few  days  and  far  between,  as  Scriptur'  says.  Yes, 
you  look  at  it  any  way  you  want  to,  it's  awful 
solemn  and  cur'us:  they  ain't  nobody  can  get  around 
it;  all's  got  to  go — just  everybody,  as  you  may  say. 
One  day  you're  hearty  and  strong" — here  he  scram 
bled  to  his  feet  and  broke  a  pane  and  stretched  his 
nose  out  at  it  a  moment  or  two,  then  sat  down 
again  while  I  struggled  up  and  thrust  my  nose  out 
at  the  same  place,  and  this  we  kept  on  doing  every 
now  and  then — "and  next  day  he's  cut  down  like  the 
grass,  and  the  places  which  knowed  him  then  knows 
him  no  more  forever,  as  Scriptur'  says.  Yes'ndeedy, 
it's  awful  solemn  and  cur'us;  but  we've  all  got  to 
go,  one  time  or  another;  they  ain't  no  getting 
around  it." 

There  was  another  long  pause;    then — 

"What  did  he  die  of?" 

I  said  I  didn't  know. 

"How  long  has  he  ben  dead?" 

It  seemed  judicious  to  enlarge  the  facts  to  fit  the 
probabilities;  so  I  said: 

"Two  or  three  days." 

But  it  did  no  good;  for  Thompson  received  it 
with  an  injured  look  w^hich  plainly  said,  "Two  or 
three  years,  you  mean."  Then  he  went  right  along, 

191 


MARK    TWAIN 

placidly  ignoring  my  statement,  and  gave  his  views 
at  considerable  length  upon  the  unwisdom  of  putting 
off  burials  too  long.  Then  he  lounged  off  toward 
the  box,  stood  a  moment,  then  came  back  on  a  sharp 
trot  and  visited  the  broken  pane,  observing: 

"'Twould  'a'  ben  a  dum  sight  better,  all  around, 
if  they'd  started  him  along  last  summer." 

Thompson  sat  down  and  buried  his  face  in  his  red 
silk  handkerchief,  and  began  to  slowly  sway  and 
rock  his  body  like  one  who  is  doing  his  best  to 
endure  the  almost  unendurable.  By  this  time  the 
fragrance — if  you  may  call  it  fragrance — was  just 
about  suffocating,  as  near  as  you  can  come  at  it. 
Thompson's  face  was  turning  gray;  I  knew  mine 
hadn't  any  color  left  in  it.  By  and  by  Thompson 
rested  his  forehead  in  his  left  hand,  with  his  elbow 
on  his  knee,  and  sort  of  waved  his  red  handkerchief 
toward  the  box  with  his  other  hand,  and  said: 

"I've  carried  a  many  a  one  of  'em — some  of 
'em  considerable  overdue,  too — but,  lordy,  he  just 
lays  over  'em  all! — and  does  it  easy.  Cap,  they 
was  heliotrope  to  him!" 

This  recognition  of  my  poor  friend  gratified  me, 
in  spite  of  the  sad  circumstances,  because  it  had  so 
much  the  sound  of  a  compliment. 

Pretty  soon  it  was  plain  that  something  had  got 
to  be  done.  I  suggested  cigars.  Thompson  thought 
it  was  a  good  idea.  He  said: 

" Likely  it'll  modify  him  some." 

We  puffed  gingerly  along  for  a  while,  and  tried 
hard  to  imagine  that  things  were  improved.  But 
it  wasn't  any  use.  Before  very  long,  and  without 

593 


THE    INVALID'S    STORY 

any  consultation,  both  cigars  were  quietly  dropped 
from  our  nerveless  fingers  at  the  same  moment. 
Thompson  said,  with  a  sigh: 

"No,  Cap,  it  don't  modify  him  worth  a  cent. 
Fact  is,  it  makes  him  worse,  becuz  it  appears  to 
stir  up  his  ambition.  What  do  you  reckon  we  better 
do,  now?" 

I  was  not  able  to  suggest  anything;  indeed,  I  had 
to  be  swallowing  and  swallowing  all  the  time,  and 
did  not  like  to  trust  myself  to  speak.  Thompson 
fell  to  maundering,  in  a  desultory  and  low-spirited 
way,  about  the  miserable  experiences  of  this  night; 
and  he  got  to  referring  to  my  poor  friend  by  various 
titles — sometimes  military  ones,  sometimes  civil 
ones;  and  I  noticed  that  as  fast  as  my  poor  friend's 
effectiveness  grew,  Thompson  promoted  him  ac 
cordingly — gave  him  a  bigger  title.  Finally  he  said : 

"I've  got  an  idea.  Suppos'n'  we  buckle  down  to 
it  and  give  the  Colonel  a  bit  of  a  shove  toward 
t'other  end  of  the  car? — about  ten  foot,  say.  He 
wouldn't  have  so  much  influence,  then,  don't  you 
reckon  ?" 

I  said  it  was  a  good  scheme.  So  we  took  in 
a  good  fresh  breath  at  the  broken  pane,  calculat 
ing  to  hold  it  till  we  got  through;  then  we  went 
there  and  bent  over  that  deadly  cheese  and  took  a 
grip  on  the  box.  Thompson  nodded  "All  ready," 
and  then  we  threw  ourselves  forward  with  all  our 
might;  but  Thompson  slipped,  and  slumped  down 
with  his  nose  on  the  cheese,  arid  his  breath  got 
loose.  He  gagged  and  gasped,  and  floundered  up 
and  made  a  break  for  the  door,  pawing  the  air 

193 


MARK    TWAIN 

and  saying  hoarsely,  "Don't  hender  me! — gimme 
the  road!  I'm  a-dying;  gimme  the  road!"  Out 
on  the  cold  platform  I  sat  down  and  held  his  head 
awhile,  and  he  revived.  Presently  he  said: 

"Do  you  reckon  we  started  the  Gen'rul  any?" 

I  said  no;  we  hadn't  budged  him. 

"Well,  then,  that  idea's  up  the  flume.  We  got 
to  think  up  something  else.  He's  suited  wher'  he 
is,  I  reckon;  and  if  that's  the  way  he  feels  about  it, 
and  has  made  up  his  mind  that  he  don't  wish  to  be 
disturbed,  you  bet  he's  a-going  to  have  his  own  way 
in  the  business.  Yes,  better  leave  him  right  wher' 
he  is,  long  as  he  wants  it  so;  becuz  he  holds  all  the 
trumps,  don't  you  know,  and  so  it  stands  to  reason 
that  the  man  that  lays  out  to  alter  his  plans  for  him 
is  going  to  get  left." 

But  we  couldn't  stay  out  there  in  that  mad  storm ; 
we  should  have  frozen  to  death.  So  we  went  in 
again  and  shut  the  door,  and  began  to  suffer  once 
more  and  take  turns  at  the  break  in  the  window.  By 
and  by,  as  we  were  starting  away  from  a  station 
where  we  had  stopped  a  moment  Thompson  pranced 
in  cheerily,  and  exclaimed: 

"We're  all  right,  now!  I  reckon  we've  got  the 
Commodore  this  time.  I  judge  I've  got  the  stuff 
here  that'll  take  the  tuck  out  of  him." 

It  was  carbolic  acid.  He  had  a  carboy  of  it.  He 
sprinkled  it  all  around  everywhere;  in  fact  he 
drenched  everything  with  it,  rifle-box,  cheese  and  all. 
Then  we  sat  down,  feeling  pretty  hopeful.  But  it 
wasn't  for  long.  You  see  the  two  perfumes  began 
to  mix,  and  then — well,  pretty  soon  we  made  a 

104. 


THESE    GAVE    IT    A    BETTER    HOLD 


THE    INVALID'S    STORY 

break  for  the  door;  and  out  there  Thompson 
swabbed  his  face  with  his  bandanna  and  said  in  a 
kind  of  disheartened  way : 

"It  ain't  no  use.  We  can't  buck  agin  him.  He 
just  utilizes  everything  we  put  up  to  modify  him  with, 
and  gives  it  his  own  flavor  and  plays  it  back  on  us. 
Why,  Cap,  don't  you  know,  it's  as  much  as  a 
hundred  times  worse  in  there  now  than  it  was  when 
he  first  got  a-going.  I  never  did  see  one  of  'em 
warm  up  to  his  work  so,  and  take  such  a  dumnation 
interest  in  it.  No,  sir,  I  never  did,  as  long  as  I've 
ben  on  the  road;  and  I've  carried  a  many  a  one  of 
'em,  as  I  was  telling  you." 

We  went  in  again  after  we  were  frozen  pretty  stiff ; 
but  my,  we  couldn't  stay  in,  now.  So  we  just 
waltzed  back  and  forth,  freezing,  and  thawing,  and 
stifling,  by  turns.  In  about  an  hour  we  stopped  at 
another  station ;  and  as  we  left  it  Thompson  came  in 
with  a  bag,  and  said — 

"Cap,  I'm  a-going  to  chance  him  once  more- 
just  this  once;  and  if  we  don't  fetch  him  this  time, 
the  thing  for  us  to  do,  is  to  just  throw  up  the  sponge 
and  withdraw  from  the  canvass.  That's  the  way  / 
put  it  up." 

He  had  brought  a  lot  of  chicken  feathers,  and 
dried  apples,  and  leaf  tobacco,  and  rags,  and  old 
shoes,  and  sulphur,  and  asafetida,  and  one  thing  or 
another;  and  he  piled  them  on  a  breadth  of  sheet  iron 
in  the  middle  of  the  floor,  and  set  fire  to  them. 

When  they  got  well  started,  I  couldn't  see,  myself, 
how  even  the  corpse  could  stand  it.  All  that  went 
before  was  just  simply  poetry  to  that  smell — but 


MARK    TWAIN 

mind  you,  the  original  smell  stood  up  out  of  it  just 
as  sublime  as  ever — fact  is,  these  other  smells  just 
seemed  to  give  it  a  better  hold;  and  my,  how  rich 
it  was !  I  didn't  make  these  reflections  there — there 
wasn't  time — made  them  on  the  platform.  And 
breaking  for  the  platform,  Thompson  got  suffocated 
and  fell;  and  before  I  got  him  dragged  out,  which  I 
did  by  the  collar,  I  was  mighty  near  gone  myself. 
When  we  revived,  Thompson  said  dejectedly : 

"We  got  to  stay  out  here,  Cap.  We  got  to  do  it. 
They  ain't  no  other  way.  The  Governor  wants  to 
travel  alone,  and  he's  fixed  so  he  can  outvote  us." 

And  presently  he  added : 

"And  don't  you  know,  we're  pisoned.  It's  our 
last  trip,  you  can  make  up  your  mind  to  it.  Typhoid 
fever  is  what's  going  to  come  of  this.  I  feel  it 
a-coming  right  now.  Yes,  sir,  we're  elected,  just  as 
sure  as  you're  born." 

We  were  taken  from  the  platform  an  hour  later, 
frozen  and  insensible,  at  the  next  station,  and  I  went 
straight  off  into  a  virulent  fever,  and  never  knew 
anything  again  for  three  weeks.  I  found  out,  then, 
that  I  had  spent  that  awful  night  with  a  harmless 
box  of  rifles  and  a  lot  of  innocent  cheese;  but  the 
news  was  too  late  to  save  me;  imagination  had  done 
its  work,  and  my  health  was  permanently  shattered ; 
neither  Bermuda  nor  any  other  land  can  ever  bring 
it  back  to  me.  This  is  my  last  trip ;  I  am  on  my  way 
home  to  die. 


STIRRING    TIMES    IN    AUSTRIA 


I.    THE    GOVERNMENT    IN    THE    FRYING-PAN 

HERE  in  Vienna  in  these  closing  days  of  1897 
one's  blood  gets  no  chance  to  stagnate.  The 
atmosphere  is  brimful  of  political  electricity.  All 
conversation  is  political;  every  man  is  a  battery, 
with  brushes  overworn,  and  gives  out  blue  sparks 
when  you  set  him  going  on  the  common  topic. 
Everybody  has  an  opinion,  and  lets  you  have  it 
frank  and  hot,  and  out  of  this  multitude  of  coun 
sel  you  get  merely  confusion  and  despair.  For 
no  one  really  understands  this  political  situation, 
or  can  tell  you  what  is  going  to  be  the  outcome 
of  it. 

Things  have  happened  here  recently  which  would 
set  any  country  but  Austria  on  fire  from  end  to 
end,  and  upset  the  government  to  a  certainty;  but 
no  one  feels  confident  that  such  results  will  follow 
here.  Here,  apparently,  one  must  wait  and  see 
what  will  happen,  then  he  will  know,  and  not  be 
fore;  guessing  is  idle;  guessing  cannot  help  the 
matter.  This  is  what  the  wise  tell  you;  they  all 
say  it;  they  say  it  every  day,  and  it  is  the  sole  de 
tail  upon  which  they  all  agree. 

There  is  some  approach  to  agreement  upon  an- 

197 


MARK    TWAIN 

other  point:  that  there  will  be  no  revolution.  Men 
say:  "Look  at  our  history — revolutions  have  not 
been  in  our  line;  and  look  at  our  political  map 
— its  construction  is  unfavorable  to  an  organized 
uprising,  and  without  unity  what  could  a  revolt 
accomplish?  It  is  disunion  which  has  held  our 
empire  together  for  centuries,  and  what  it  has 
done  in  the  past  it  may  continue  to  do  now  and 
in  the  future." 

The  most  intelligible  sketch  I  have  encountered 
of  this  unintelligible  arrangement  of  things  was  con 
tributed  to  the  Travelers  Record  by  Mr.  Forrest 
Morgan,  of  Hartford,  three  years  ago.  He  says: 

The  Austro-Hungarian  Monarchy  is  the  patchwork  quilt,  the 
Midway  Plaisance,  the  national  chain-gang  of  Europe;  a  state 
that  is  not  a  nation  but  a  collection  of  nations,  some  with  national 
memories  and  aspirations  and  others  without,  some  occupying 
distinct  provinces  almost  purely  their  own,  and  others  mixed 
with  alien  races,  but  each  with  a  different  language,  and  each 
mostly  holding  the  others  foreigners  as  much  as  if  the  link  of  a 
common  government  did  not  exist.  Only  one  of  its  races  even 
now  comprises  so  much  as  one-fourth  of  the  whole,  and  not  an 
other  so  much  as  one-sixth;  and  each  has  remained  for  ages  as 
unchanged  in  isolation,  however  mingled  together  in  locality, 
as  globules  of  oil  in  water.  There  is  nothing  else  in  the  modern 
world  that  is  nearly  like  it,  though  there  have  been  plenty  in 
past  ages;  it  seems  unreal  and  impossible  even  though  we  know 
it  is  true;  it  violates  all  our  feeling  as  to  what  a  country  should 
be  in  order  to  have  a  right  to  exist ;  and  it  seems  as  though  it  was 
too  ramshackle  to  go  on  holding  together  any  length  of  time. 
Yet  it  has  survived,  much  in  its  present  shape,  two  centuries 
of  storms  that  have  swept  perfectly  unified  countries  from 
existence  and  others  that  have  brought  it  to  the  verge  of  ruin, 
has  survived  formidable  European  coalitions  to  dismember  it, 
and  has  steadily  gained  force  after  each;  forever  changing  in  its 
exact  make-up,  losing  in  the  West  but  gaining  in  the  East,  the 

198 


STIRRING    TIMES    IN    AUSTRIA 

changes  leave  the  structure  as  firm  as  ever,  like  the  dropping 
off  and  adding  on  of  logs  in  a  raft,  its  mechanical  union  of 
pieces  showing  all  the  vitality  of  genuine  national  life. 

That  seems  to  confirm  and  justify  the  prevalent 
Austrian  faith  that  in  this  confusion  of  unrelated  and 
irreconcilable  elements,  this  condition  of  incurable 
disunion,  there  is  strength— for  the  government. 
Nearly  every  day  some  one  explains  to  me  that  a 
revolution  would  not  succeed  here.  "It  couldn't, 
you  know.  Broadly  speaking,  all  the  nations  in  the 
empire  hate  the  government — but  they  all  hate  each 
other,  too,  and  with  devoted  and  enthusiastic  bitter 
ness;  no  two  of  them  can  combine;  the  nation  that 
rises  must  rise  alone;  then  the  others  would  joyfully 
join  the  government  against  her,  and  she  would  have 
just  a  fly's  chance  against  a  combination  of  spiders. 
This  government  is  entirely  independent.  It  can  go 
its  own  road,  and  do  as  it  pleases;  it  has  nothing  to 
fear.  In  countries  like  England  and  America,  where 
there  is  one  tongue  and  the  public  interests  are 
common,  the  government  must  take  account  of  pub 
lic  opinion;  but  in  Austria-Hungary  there  are  nine 
teen  public  opinions — one  for  each  state.  No — two 
or  three  for  each  state,  since  there  are  two  or  three 
nationalities  in  each.  A  government  cannot  satisfy 
all  these  public  opinions;  it  can  only  go  through 
the  motions  of  trying.  This  government  does  that. 
It  goes  through  the  motions,  and  they  do  not 
succeed;  but  that  does  not  worry,  the  government 
much." 

The  next  man  will  give  you  some  further  informa 
tion.  "The  government  has  a  policy — a  wise  one 

14  TOQ 


MARK    TWAIN 

• — and  sticks  steadily  to  it.  This  policy  is — tran 
quillity:  keep  this  hive  of  excitable  nations  as  quiet 
as  possible;  encourage  them  to  amuse  themselves 
with  things  less'  inflammatory  than  politics.  To  this 
end  it  furnishes  them  an  abundance  of  Catholic 
priests  to  teach  them  to  be  docile  and  obedient,  and 
to  be  diligent  in  acquiring  ignorance  about  things 
here  below,  and  knowledge  about  the  kingdom  of 
heaven,  to  whose  historic  delights  they  are  going  to 
add  the  charm  of  their  society  by  and  by;  and  fur 
ther — to  this  same  end — it  cools  off  the  newspapers 
every  morning  at  five  o'clock,  whenever  warm  events 
are  happening."  There  is  a  censor  of  the  press,  and 
apparently  he  is  always  on  duty  and  hard  at  work. 
A  copy  of  each  morning  paper  is  brought  to  him  at 
five  o'clock.  His  official  wagons  wait  at  the  doors 
of  the  newspaper  offices  and  scud  to  him  with  the 
first  copies  that  come  from  the  press.  His  company 
of  assistants  read  every  line  in  these  papers,  and 
mark  everything  which  seems  to  have  a  dangerous 
look;  then  he  passes  final  judgment  upon  these 
markings.  Two  things  conspire  to  give  to  the  re 
sults  a  capricious  and  unbalanced  look:  his  assist 
ants  have  diversified  notions  as  to  what  is  dangerous 
and  what  isn't;  he  can't  get  time  to  examine  their 
criticisms  in  much  detail;  and  so  sometimes  the  very 
same  matter  which  is  suppressed  in  one  paper  fails 
to  be  damned  in  another  one,  and  gets  published  in 
full  feather  and  unmodified.  Then  the  paper  in 
which  it  was  suppressed  blandly  copies  the  forbidden 
matter  into  its  evening  edition — provokingly  giving 
credit  and  detailing  all  the  circumstances  in  cour- 

200 


STIRRING    TIMES    IN    AUSTRIA 

teous  and  inoffensive  language — and  of  course  the 
censor  cannot  say  a  word. 

Sometimes  the  censor  sucks  all  the  blood  out  of  a 
newspaper  and  leaves  it  colorless  and  inane;  some 
times  he  leaves  it  undisturbed,  and  lets  it  talk  out 
its  opinions  with  a  frankness  and  vigor  hardly  to  be 
surpassed,  I  think,  in  the  journals  of  any  country. 
Apparently  the  censor  sometimes  revises  his  verdicts 
upon  second  thought,  for  several  times  lately  he  has 
suppressed  journals  after  their  issue  and  partial  dis 
tribution.  The  distributed  copies  are  then  sent  for 
by  the  censor  and  destroyed.  I  have  two  of  these, 
but  at  the  time  they  were  sent  for  I  could  not  re 
member  what  I  had  done  with  them. 

If  the  censor  did  his  work  before  the  morning 
edition  was  printed,  he  would  be  less  of  an  incon 
venience  than  he  is;  but  of  course  the  papers  can 
not  wait  many  minutes  after  five  o'clock  to  get  his 
verdict;  they  might  as  well  go  out  of  business  as  do 
that;  so  they  print,  and  take  the  chances.  Then, 
if  they  get  caught  by  a  suppression,  they  must  strike 
out  the  condemned  matter  and  print  the  edition  over 
again.  That  delays  the  issue  several  hours,  and  is 
expensive  besides.  The  government  gets  the  sup 
pressed  edition  for  nothing.  If  it  bought  it,  that 
would  be  joyful,  and  would  give  great  satisfaction. 
Also,  the  edition  would  be  larger.  Some  of  the 
papers  do  not  replace  the  condemned  paragraphs 
with  other  matter;  they  merely  snatch  them  out 
and  leave  blanks  behind — mourning  blanks,  marked 
"Confiscated" 

The  government  discourages  the  dissemination  of 
J4  201 


MARK   ;T WAIN* /!HI  flftTJ 

newspaper  information  in  other  ways;  i  '•  For  instance, 
it  does  not  allow  newspapers  to  -be  sold  on  the  streets; 
therefore  the  newsboy  is  unknown  in  Vienna.  .(And 
there  is  a  stamp  duty  of  nearly,  a  cent,  upon  ;each 
copy  of  a  newspaper's  issue.  Every  American'  paper 
that  reaches  me  has  a  stamp  upon  it,  which  has  been 
pasted  there  in  the  post-office  or  downstairs  in  the 
hotel  office ;  but  no  matter  who  put  it  there> ;  I  have 
to  pay  for  it,  and  that  is  the  main  thing.  Sometimes 
friends  send  me  so  many  papers  that  it  takes  all  I 
can  earn  that  week  to  keep  this  government  going. 

I  must  take  passing  notice  of  another  point  in  the 
government's  measures  for  maintaining  tranquillity.1 
Everybody  says  it  does  not  like  to  see  any  individual 
attain  to  commanding  influence  in  the  country,. since 
such  a  man  can  become  a  disturber  and  an  incon 
venience.  • '  We  have  as  much  talent  as  the  other 
nations,"  says  the  citizen,  resignedly,  and  without 
bitterness,  "but  for  the  sake  of  the  general  good  of 
the  country  we, are  discouraged  from  making  it  over- 
conspicuous;  and  not  only  discouraged,  but  t^ct- 
fully  and  skillfully  prevented  from  doing  it,  if  we 
show  too  much  persistence.  Consequently ; we  have 
no. renowned  men;  in  centuries  we  have  seldom  pro 
duced  one — that  is,  seldom  allowed  one  to 'produce 
himself.  We  can  say  to-day  What  no  other  nation 
of  first  importance  in  the  family  of  Christian  civili 
zations  can  say:  that  there  exists  no; Austrian  who 
has  made  an  enduring  name  for  himself  which >  is  if  a- 
miliar  all  around  the  globe." 

Another  helper  toward  tranquillity  is-  the  army. 
It  is  as  pervasive  as  the  atmosphere.  -It  is  evfery- 

202 


STIRRING  i  TIMES;  IN    AUSTRIA 

where.  All'  the  mentioned  creators,  promoters,  ancj 
preservers  of  the  public  tranquillity  do  their  several 
shades  in  the  quieting  wprk:  They  make  a  restful 
and  comfortable!  serenity  and  reposefulness.  This  is 
disturbed  sometimes  for  a  little  while:  a  mob  as 
sembles  to  protest  against  something;  it  gets  noisy 
—noisier — still  noisier — finally  too  noisy;  then  the 
persuasive  soldiery  come  charging  down  upon  it, 
and  in  a  few  minutes  all  is  quiet  again,  and  there  is 
no  mob,  • 

There  is  a  Constitution  and  there  is  a  Parliament. 
The '  House  draws  its  membership  of  425  deputies 
from  the  nineteen  or  twenty  states  heretofore  men 
tioned.  These  men  represent  peoples  who  speak 
eleven  languages.  That  means  eleven  distinct  varie 
ties  of  jealousies,  hostilities,  and  warring  interests. 
This'  could  be  expected  to  furnish  forth  a  parlia 
ment  of  a  pretty  inharmonious  sort,  and  make  legis 
lation  difficult  at  times— and  it  does  that.  The 
parliament  is  split  up  into  many  parties— the  Cler 
icals,  the  Progressists,  the  German  Nationalists,  the 
Young  Czechs,  the  Social  Democrats,  the  Christian 
Socialists,  and  some  others — and  it  is  difficult  to  get 
u'p  working  combinations  among  them.  They  prefer 
to  fight  apart  sometimes. 

The  recent  troubles  have  grown  out  of  Count 
Badern'b'  necessities.  '  He  could  not  carry  on  his 
government  without  a  majority  vote  in  the  House 
at  his  back,  and  in  order  to  secure  it  he  had  to 
make  a  trade  of  some  sort.  He  made  it  with  the 
Czechs^the  Bohemians/  The  terms  were  not  easy 
for  him  t  he  mu£t  pass  a  bill  making  the  Czech  tongue 


MARK    TWAIN 

the  official  language  in  Bohemia  in  place  of  the 
German.  This  created  a  storm.  All  the  Germans 
in  Austria  were  incensed.  In  numbers  they  form  but 
a  fourth  part  of  the  empire  s  population,  but  they 
urge  that  the  country's  public  business  should  be 
conducted  in  one  common  tongue,  and  that  tongue 
a  world  language — which  German  is. 

However,  Badeni  secured  his  majority.  The 
German  element  in  parliament  was  apparently  be 
come  helpless.  The  Czech  deputies  were  exultant. 

Then  the  music  began.  Badeni 's  voyage,  instead 
of  being  smooth,  was  disappointingly  rough  from 
the  start.  The  government  must  get  the  Ausgleich 
through.  It  must  not  fail.  Badeni's  majority  was 
ready  to  carry  it  through;  but  the  minority  was 
determined  to  obstruct  it  and  delay  it  until  the  ob 
noxious  Czech-language  measure  should  be  shelved. 

The  Ausgleich  is  an  Adjustment,  Arrangement, 
Settlement,  which  holds  Austria  and  Hungary  to 
gether.  It  dates  from  1867,  and  has  to  be  renewed 
every  ten  years.  It  establishes  the  share  which 
Hungary  must  pay  toward  the  expenses  of  the 
imperial  government.  Hungary  is  a  kingdom  (the 
Emperor  of  Austria  is  its  King),  and  has  its  own 
parliament  and  governmental  machinery.  But  it  has 
no  foreign  office,  and  it  has  no  army — at  least  its 
army  is  a  part  of  the  imperial  army,  is  paid  out  of 
the  imperial  treasury,  and  is  under  the  control  of  the 
imperial  war  office. 

The  ten-year  rearrangement  was  due  a  year  ago, 
but  failed  to  connect.  At  least  completely.  A 
year's  compromise  was  arranged,  A  new  arrange- 


STIRRING    TIMES    IN    AUSTRIA 

ment  must  be  effected  before  the  last  day  of  this 
year.  Otherwise  the  two  countries  become  separate 
entities.  The  Emperor  would  still  be  King  of 
Hungary — that  is,  King  of  an  independent  foreign 
country.  There  would  be  Hungarian  custom-houses 
on  the  Austrian  frontier,  and  there  would  be  a  Hun 
garian  army  and  a  Hungarian  foreign  office.  Both 
countries  would  be  weakened  by  this,  both  would 
suffer  damage. 

The  Opposition  in  the  House,  although  in  the 
minority,  had  a  good  wreapon  to  fight  with  in  the 
pending  Ausgleich.  If  it  could  delay  the  Ausgleich 
a  few  weeks,  the  government  would  doubtless  have 
to  withdraw  the  hated  language  bill  or  lose  Hungary. 

The  Opposition  began  its  fight.  Its  arms  were  the 
Rules  of  the  House.  It  was  soon  manifest  that  by 
applying  these  Rules  ingeniously  it  could  make  the 
majority  helpless,  and  keep  it  so  as  long  as  it  pleased. 
It  could  shut  off  business  every  now  and  then  with 
a  motion  to  adjourn.  It  could  require  the  ayes  and 
noes  on  the  motion,  and  use  up  thirty  minutes  on 
that  detail.  It  could  call  for  the  reading  and  verifi 
cation  of  the  minutes  of  the  preceding  meeting,  and 
use  up  half  a  day  in  that  way.  It  could  require  that 
several  of  its  members  be  entered  upon  the  list  of 
permitted  speakers  previously  to  the  opening  of  a 
sitting;  and  as  there  is  no  time  limit,  further  delays 
could  thus  be  accomplished. 

These  were  all  lawful  weapons,  and  the  men  of 
the  Opposition  (technically  called  the  Left)  were 
within  their  rights  in  using  them.  They  used  them 
to  such  dire  purpose  that  all  parliamentary  business 

205 


MARK  -TWAINS  Jifll  T'2 

was  paralyzed.  The  Right  (the  government  side) 
could  accomplish  nothing.  Then  it  had«a  saving 
idea.  This  idea  was  a  curious  one*  It  was  to,  have 
the  President  and  the  Vice-Presidents  of  the  parlia 
ment  trample  the  Rules  under  'foot  upon  occasion  I . 

This,  for  a  profoundly  embittered  minority,  iconr 
strutted  out  of  fire  and  gun-iootton!  Iti  wa& ,  time 
for  idle  strangers  to  go  and  ask  leave,  to /look  clown 
out  of  a  gallery  and  see  what  would  be  the  result  of>  it. 


II.    A   MEMORABLE   glT 


And  now  took  place  that  memorable  sitting  of  the 
House  which  broke!  two;  records.  It  lasted  the  best 
part  of  two  days  and  a  night,  surpassing  by  'half  an 
hour  the  longest  sitting  known  to  the  World's  previous 
parliamentary  history,  and  breaking  the  longrspeech 
record  with  Dr.  Lecher's  twelve-hour-  effort^  ,  the 
longest  flow  of  unbroken  talk  that  ever  came  out  of 
one  mouth  since  the  world  began.;  m\\>t,  oi  rrotinm  i; 

At  8.45,  on  the  evening  of  the  28th  of  October, 
when  the  House  had  been  sitting  a  fewf  minutes  short 
of  ten  hours,  Dr.  Lecher  was  granted  the  floor.  It 
was  a  good  place  for  theatrical  effects.  I  think  that 
no  other  Senate  House  is  so  shapely  as  this  one,  or 
so  richly  and  showily  decorated.  Its  plan  is  that 
of  an  opera-house.  Up  toward  the,  straight  side  of 
it  —  the  stage  side  —  rise  a  couple  of  terraces,  of  desks 
for  the  ministry,  and  the  official  clerks  .or  secretaries 
—terraces  thirty  feet  long;  ;  and  each;  ;  supporting 
about  half  a  dozen  desks  with  spaces  between  them. 
Above  these  is  the  President's  terrace,  >agaiiist  the 

206 


STIRRING! /TIMES    IN    AUSTRIA 

wall.  •  Along  it  are  distributed  the  proper  accommo 
dations  for  the  presiding  officer  and  his  assistants. 
The  wall  is  of  richly  colored  marble  highly  polished, 
its  paneled  sweep  relieved  by  fluted  columns  and 
pilasters  of  distinguished  grace  and  dignity,  which 
glow  softly  and  frostily  in  the  electric  light.  Around 
the  spacious  half-circle  of  the  floor  bends  the  great 
two-storied  curve  of  the  boxes,  its  frontage  elaborate 
ly  ornamened  and  sumptuously  gilded.  On  the  floor 
of  the  House  the  four  hundred  and  twenty-five  desks 
radiate  fan  wise  from  the  President's  tribune. 

The  galleries  are  crowded  on  this  particular  eve 
ning,  for  word  has  gone  about  that  the  Ausgleich  is 
before  the  House;  that  the  President,  Ritter  von 
Abrahamowicz,  has  been  throttling  the  Rules;  that 
the  Opposition  are  in  an  inflammable  state  in  con 
sequence,  and  that  the  night  session  is  likely  to  be 
of  an  exciting  sort. 

The  gallery  guests  are  fashionably  dressed,  and 
the  finery  of  the  women  makes  a  bright  and  pretty 
show  under  the  strong  electric  light.  But  down  on 
the  floor  there  is  no  costumery. 

The  deputies  are  dressed  in  day  clothes;  some  of 
the  clothes  neat  and  trim,  others  not ;  there  may  be 
three  members  in  evening  dress,  but  not  more. 
There  are  several  Catholic  priests  in  their  long  black 
gowns,  and  with  crucifixes  hanging  from  their  necks. 
No  member  wears  his  hat.  One  may  see  by  these 
details  that  the  aspects  are  not  those  of  an  evening 
fitting  of  an  English  House  of  Commons,  but  rather 
those  of  a  sitting  of  our  House  of  Representatives. 

In  his  high  place  sits  the  President,  Abraham- 

707 


MARK    TWAIN 

owicz,  object  of  the  Opposition's  limitless  hatred. 
He  is  sunk  back  in  the  depths  of  his  arm-chair,  and 
has  his  chin  down.  He  brings  the  ends  of  his  spread 
fingers  together  in  front  of  his  breast,  and  reflectively 
taps  them  together,  with  the  air  of  one  who  would 
like  to  begin  business,  but  must  wait,  and  be  as 
patient  as  he  can.  It  makes  you  think  of  Richelieu. 
Now  and  then  he  swings  his  head  up  to  the  left  or 
to  the  right  and  answers  something  which  some  one 
has  bent  down  to  say  to  him.  Then  he  taps  his 
fingers  again.  He  looks  tired,  and  maybe  a  trifle 
harassed.  He  is  a  gray-haired,  long,  slender  man, 
with  a  colorless  long  face,  which,  in  repose,  suggests 
a  death-mask;  but  when  not  in  repose  is  tossed  and 
rippled  by  a  turbulent  smile  which  washes  this  way 
and  that,  and  is  not  easy  to  keep  up  with — a  pious 
smile,  a  holy  smile,  a  saintly  smile,  a  deprecating 
smile,  a  beseeching  and  supplicating  smile ;  and  when 
it  is  at  work  the  large  mouth  opens  and  the  flexible 
lips  crumple,  and  unfold,  and  crumple  again,  and 
move  around  in  a  genial  and  persuasive  and  angelic 
way,  and  expose  large  glimpses  of  the  teeth;  and 
that  interrupts  the  sacredness  of  the  smile  and  gives 
it  momentarily  a  mixed  worldly  and  political  and 
satanic  cast.  It  is  a  most  interesting  face  to  watch. 
And  then  the  long  hands  and  the  body — they  fur 
nish  great  and  frequent  help  to  the  face  in  the 
business  of  adding  to  the  force  of  the  statesman's 
words. 

To  change  the  tense.  At  the  time  of  which  I 
have  just  been  speaking  the  crowds  in  the  galleries 
were  gazing  at  the  stage  and  the  pit  with  rapt  in- 

208 


STIRRING    TIMES    IN    AUSTRIA 

terest  and  expectancy.  One  half  of  the  great  fan 
of  desks  was  in  effect  empty,  vacant;  in  the  other 
half  several  hundred  members  were  bunched  and 
jammed  together  as  solidly  as  the  bristles  in  a 
brush;  and  they  also  were  waiting  and  expecting. 
Presently  the  Chair  delivered  this  utterance: 

"Dr.  Lecher  has  the  floor." 

Then  burst  out  such  another  wild  and  frantic  and 
deafening  clamor  as  has  not  been  heard  on  this 
planet  since  the  last  time  the  Comanches  surprised  a 
white  settlement  at  midnight.  Yells  from  the  Left, 
counter-yells  from  the  Right,  explosions  of  yells 
from  all  sides  at  once,  and  all  the  air  sawed  and 
pawed  and  clawed  and  cloven  by  a  writhing  con 
fusion  of  gesturing  arms  and  hands.  Out  of  the 
midst  of  this  thunder  and  turmoil  and  tempest  rose 
Dr.  Lecher,  serene  and  collected,  and  the  providen 
tial  length  of  him  enabled  his  head  to  show  out  above 
it.  He  began  his  twelve-hour  speech.  At  any  rate,  his 
lips  could  be  seen  to  move,  and  that  was  evidence. 
On  high  sat  the  President  imploring  order,  with  his 
long  hands  put  together  as  in  prayer,  and  his  lips 
visibly  but  not  hearably  speaking.  At  intervals  he 
grasped  his  bell  and  swung  it  up  and  down  with 
vigor,  adding  its  keen  clamor  to  the  storm  weltering 
there  below. 

Dr.  Lecher  went  on  with  his  pantomime  speech, 
contented,  untroubled.  Here  and  there  and  now  and 
then  powerful  voices  burst  above  the  din,  and  de 
livered  an  ejaculation  that  was  heard.  Then  the  din 
ceased  for  a  moment  or  two,  and  gave  opportunity 
to  hear  what  the  Chair  might  answer ;  then  the  noise 

20Q 


/,  i  HTttU  /MARK  'TWAIN'/  i  / 

broke  out  again.  Apparently  the  President  was 
being  charged  with  all  sorts  of  illegal  exercises  of 
power  in  the  interest  of  the  Right  (the  'government 
side) :  among  these,  with  arbitrarily  closing  an  Order 
of  Business  before  it  was  finished;  with  an  unfair 
distribution  of  the  right  to  the  floor;  with  refusal  of 
the  floor,  upon  quibble  and  protest,  to  members  en 
titled  to  it;  with  stopping  a  speaker's  speech  upon 
quibble  and  protest;  and  with  other  transgressions 
of  the  Rules  of  the  House.  One  of  the  interrupters 
who  made  himself  heard  was  a  young  fellow  of  slight 
build  and  neat  dress,  who  stood  a  little  apart 'from 
the  solid  crowd  and  leaned  negligently,  with  folded 
arms  and  feet  crossed,  against  a  desk.  Trim  and 
handsome,  'Strong  face  and  thin  features ;  black  hair 
roughed  up;  parsimonious  mustache;  resonant  great 
voice,  of  good  tone  and  pitch.  It  is  Wolf,  capable 
and  'hospitable  with  sword  arid  pistol;  fighter  of  the 
recent  duel  with  Count  Baderii,  the  head1  of  the 
government.  He  shot  Badeni  through  the  arm,  and 
then  walked  over  in  the  politest  way 'and  inspected 
his  game,  shook  hands,  expressed  regret,  arid  all 
that.  Out  of  him  came  early' this  thunderirig  peal, 
audible  above  the  storm  ci 

<(I  demand  the  floor.     I  wish  to  offer  a  motion." 
In  the  sudden  lull  which  followed,  the  Presiderit 
answered,  "Dn,  Lecher  has  the  floor." 

Wolf.  "I  move  the  close:  of  the  sitting !"'  >•>  i  u-.»  1 1 1, 
P.  "Representative     Lecher     has     the     floor. " 
(Stormy    outburst    from    the    Left-— that  •  is,    the 
Opposition.] 

Wolf,  i" I. -demand  the  floor  for  the  introduction 


STIRRING    TIMES    IN  '  AUSTRIA 

of  a  formal  motion.  [Pause.]  Mr.  President,  are 
you  going  to  grant  it,  or  not?  [Crash  of  approval 
from  the  Left.]  I  will  keep  on  demanding  the  floor 
till  I  get  it." 

P.  "I  call  Representative  Wolf  to  order.  Dr. 
Lecher  has  the  floor. ' ' 

Wolf.  "Mr.  President,  are  you  going  to  observe 
the  Rules  of  this  House?"  [Tempest  of  applause  arid 
confused  ejaculations  from  the  Left — a  boom  and 
roar  which  long  endured,  and  stopped  all  business 
for  the  time  being.] 

Dr.  von  Pessler.  "By  the  Rules  motions  are i  in 
order,  and'  the  Chair  must  put  them  to  vote." 

For  answer  the  President  (who  is  a  Pole — I  make 
this  remark  in  passing)  began  to  jangle  his  bell  with 
energy  at  the  moment  that  that  wild  pandemonium 
of  voices  burst  out  again. 

Wolf  (hearable  above  the  storm).  "Mr.  Presi 
dent,  I  demand  the  floor.  We  intend  to  find  out, 
here  and  now,  which  is  the  hardest,  a  Pole's  skull  or 
a  German's!" 

This  brought  out  a  perfect  cyclone  of  satisfaction 
from  the  Left.  In  the  midst  of  it  some  one  again 
moved  an  adjournment.  The  President  blandly 
answered  that  Dr.  Lecher  had  the  floor.  Which  was 
true;  and  he  was  speaking,  too,  calmly,  earnestly, 
and  argumentatively ;  and  the  official  stenographers 
had  left  their  places  and  were  at  his  elbows  taking 
down  his  words,  he  leaning  and  orating  into  their 
ears— a  most  curious  and  interesting  scene. 

Dr.  von  Pessler  (to  the  Chair).  "Do  not  drive  us 
to  extremities!" 

211 


MARK    TWAIN 

The  tempest  burst  out  again;  yells  of  approval 
from  the  Left,  catcalls,  an  ironical  laughter  from 
the  Right.  At  this  point  a  new  and  most  effective 
noise-maker  was  pressed  into  service.  Each  desk  has 
an  extension,  consisting  of  a  removable  board 
eighteen  inches  long,  six  wide,  and  a  half -inch  thick. 
A  member  pulled  one  of  these  out  and  began  to 
belabor  the  top  of  his  desk  with  it.  Instantly  other 
members  followed  suit,  and  perhaps  you  can  imagine 
the  result.  Of  all  conceivable  rackets  it  is  the  most 
ear-splitting,  intolerable,  and  altogether  fiendish. 

The  persecuted  President  leaned  back  in  his  chair, 
closed  his  eyes,  clasped  his  hands  in  his  lap,  and  a 
look  of  pathetic  resignation  crept  over  his  long  face. 
It  is  the  way  a  country  schoolmaster  used  to  look  in 
days  long  past  when  he  had  refused  his  school  a 
holiday  and  it  had  risen  against  him  in  ill-mannered 
riot  and  violence  and  insurrection.  Twice  a  motion 
to  adjourn  had  been  offered — a  motion  always  in 
order  in  other  Houses,  and  doubtless  so  in  this  one 
also.  The  President  had  refused  to  put  these  mo 
tions.  By  consequence,  he  was  not  in  a  pleasant 
place  now,  and  was  having  a  right  hard  time.  Votes 
upon  motions,  whether  carried  or  defeated,  could 
make  endless  delay,  and  postpone  the  Ausgleich  to 
next  century. 

In  the  midst  of  these  sorrowful  circumstances  and 
this  hurricane  of  yells  and  screams  and  satanic  clatter 
of  desk-boards,  Representative  Dr.  Kronawetter  un 
feelingly  reminds  the  Chair  that  a  motion  has  been 
offered,  and -adds:  "Say  yes,  or  no!  What  do  you 
sit  there  for,  and  give  no  answer?" 

212 


STIRRING    TIMES    IN    AUSTRIA 

P.  "After  I  have  given  a  speaker  the  floor,  I  can 
not  give  it  to  another.  After  Dr.  Lecher  is  through, 
I  will  put  your  motion."  [Storm  of  indignation  from 
the  Left.] 

Wolf  (to  the  Chair).  ''Thunder  and  lightning! 
look  at  the  Rule  governing  the  case!" 

Kronawetter.  "I  move  the  close  of  the  sitting! 
And  I  demand  the  ayes  and  noes!" 

Dr.  Lecher.  "Mr.  President,  have  I  the  floor?" 

P.  "You  have  the  floor." 

Wolf  (to  the  Chair,  in  a  stentorian  voice  which 
cleaves  its  way  through  the  storm).  "It  is  by  such 
brutalities  as  these  that  you  drive  us  to  extremities! 
Are  you  waiting  till  some  one  shall  throw  into  your 
face  the  word  that  shall  describe  what  you  are 
bringing  about  ?  *  [Tempest  of  insulted  fury  from  the 
Right.]  Is  that  what  you  are  waiting  for,  old  Gray- 
head  ?  "  [Long-continued  clatter  of  desk-boards  from 
the  Left,  with  shouts  of  "The  vote!  the  vote!"  An 
ironical  shout  from  the  Right,  "Wolf  is  boss!"] 

Wolf  keeps  on  demanding  the  floor  for  his  motion. 
At  length: 

P.  "I  call  Representative  Wolf  to  order!  Your 
conduct  is  unheard-of,  sir !  You  forget  that  you  are 
in  a  parliament;  you  must  remember  where  you  are, 
sir."  [Applause  from  the  Right.  Dr.  Lecher  is  still 
peacefully  speaking,  the  stenographers  listening  at 
his  lips.] 

Wolf  (banging  on  his  desk  with  his  desk-board). 
"I  demand  the  floor  for  my  motion!  I  won't  stand 
this  trampling  of  the  Rules  under  foot — no,  not  if 

1  That  is,  revolution. 
213 


'  J  /M  #RK  ;  /TDWATN)  M  1  51  M  i  TR 


I  die  for  it!    I  will  never  yield!    You  have  got  to 
stop  me  by  force.     Have  I  'the  floor?"  <>j  n  --/Jo  j,,,r 

P.  4  '  Representative  Wolf,  what  kind  of  behavion 
is  this?  I  call  you  to  order  again.  You  shojuld  have; 
some  regard  for  your  dignity.  '  '  \  \  .  ;  1  1 

Dr.  Lecher  speaks  on.  Wolf  turns  "upon  him  with 
an  offensive  innuendo. 

Dr.  Lecher.  "Mr.  Woti,  I  beg  you  to  refraini  from 
that  sort  of  'suggestions."  [Storm  of  hand^clapping 
from  the  Right.] 

This  wa3  applause  from  the  enemy,  for  Lecher 
himself,  like  Wolf  ,  was  an  Obstructionist.  .-}}  ;;-r/j,  -, 

Wolf  growls  to  -Lecher:  "Y6u  can  scribble  that 
applause  in  your  alburn'  !"; 

''^""Once  more  I  call  Representative  Wolf  to 
order  !  Do  not  forget  that  you  are  a  Representative; 
sir!"  V>..v  \i/A\  -<\  |.h{-;iM 

Wotf  (slam-banging  with  his  desk-board)  |  '  "  I'  will 
force  this  matter!  Are  you  going  to  grant  *n£  the 
floor  j  or  not?" 

And  still  the  sergeant-at-arms  did  not  appear.//  It 
was  because  there  wasn't  any.  It  is  a  curious  thing, 
'but'  the  Chair  has  no  effectual  means  of:  compelling 


1  Aftei4  Some  /more  interruptions  :  /  :  if!-)]i;j;il-n:.j  j 
Wolf  (banging  with  his  board),  C'I  demand 

fioor.     I  will  not  yield!" 
P.  "I  have  no  recourse  against  Representative 

Wolf,     tn  the  presence  of  behavior  like  this  it  is  to 

be  regretted  that  such  is  the  case."     [A  shout:  from 

the  Right,  "Throw  him  out;!"] 

It  is  true,  he  had  no  effective  recourse.    He  had 

214 


STIRRING    TIMES    IN    AUSTRIA 

aft:  official  called  an  "Qrdner,"  whose  help  he  could 
invoke  in  desperate  cases,  but  apparently  the  Ordner 
is  only  a  persuader,  not  a  compeller.  Apparently  he 
is  a  sergeant-at-arms  who  is  not  loaded;  a  good 
enough  gun  to  look  at,  but  not  valuable  for  business. 

For  another  twenty  or  thirty  minutes  Wolf  went 
on  banging  with  his  board  and  demanding  his  rights; 
then  at  last  the  weary  President  threatened  to  sum 
mon  the  dread  order-maker.  But  both  his  manner 
and  his  words  were  reluctant.  Evidently  it  grieved 
him  to  have  to  resort  to  this  dire  extremity.  He  said 
to  Wolf,  "If  this  goes  on,  I  shall  feel  obliged  to 
summon  the  Ordner,  and  beg  him  to  restore  order  in 
the  House." 

Wolf.  "I'd  like  to  see  you  do  it!  Suppose  you 
fetch  in  a  few  policemen,  too !  [Great  tumult.]  Are 
you  going  to  put  my  motion  to  adjourn,  or  not?" 

Dr.  Lecher  continues  his  speech.  Wolf  accom 
panies  him  with  his  board-clatter. 

The  President  despatches  the  Ordner,  Dr.  Lang 
(himself  a  deputy),  on  his  order-restoring  mission. 
Wolf,  with  his  board  uplifted  for  defense,  confronts 
the  Ordner  with  a  remark  which  Boss  Tweed  might 
have  translated  into  "Now  let's  see  what  you  are 
going  to  do  about  it!"  [Noise  and  tumult  all  over 
the  House.] 

Wolf  stands  upon  his  rights,  and  says  he  will 
maintain  them  till  he  is  killed  in  his  tracks.  Then 
he  resumes  his  banging,  the  President  jangles  his 
bell  and  begs  for  order,  and  the  rest  of  the  House 
augments  the , racket,  tjie  best  it  can. 

Wolf.  ' ',!  require  an  adjournment,  because. !  ;I  find 
J5  ?,I5 


MARK    TWAIN 

myself  personally  threatened.  [Laughter  from  the 
Right.]  Not  that  I  fear  for  myself;  I  am  only 
anxious  about  what  will  happen  to  the  man  who 
touches  me." 

The  Ordner.  "I  am  not  going  to  fight  with  you." 
Nothing  came  of  the  efforts  of  the  angel  of  peace, 
and  he  presently  melted  out  of  the  scene  and  dis 
appeared.  Wolf  went  on  with  his  noise  and  with 
his  demands  that  he  be  granted  the  floor,  resting  his 
board  at  intervals  to  discharge  criticisms  and  epithets 
at  the  Chair.  Once  he  reminded  the  Chairman  of 
his  violated  promise  to  grant  him  (Wolf)  the  floor, 
and  said,  "Whence  I  came,  we  call  promise-breakers 
rascals!"  And  he  advised  the  Chairman  to  take  his 
conscience  to  bed  with  him  and  use  it  as  a  pillow. 
Another  time  he  said  that  the  Chair  was  making 
itself  ridiculous  before  all  Europe.  In  fact,  some  of 
Wolf's  language  was  almost  unparliamentary.  By 
and  by  he  struck  the  idea  of  beating  out  a  tune  with 
his  board.  Later  he  decided  to  stop  asking  for  the 
floor,  and  to  confer  it  upon  himself.  And  so  he  and 
Dr.  Lecher  now  spoke  at  the  same  time,  and  mingled 
their  speeches  with  the  other  noises,  and  nobody 
heard  either  of  them.  Wolf  rested  himself  now  and 
then  from  speech-making  by  reading,  in  his  clarion 
voice,  from  a  pamphlet. 

I  will  explain  that  Dr.  Lecher  was  not  making  a 
twelve-hour  speech  for  pastime,  but  for  an  important 
purpose.  It  was  the  government's  intention  to  push 
the  Ausgleich  through  its  preliminary  stages  in  this 
one  sitting  (for  which  it  was  the  Order  of  the  Day), 
and  then  by  vote  refer  it  to  a  select  committee. 

216 


STIRRING    TIMES    IN    AUSTRIA 

It  was  the  Majority's  scheme — as  charged  by  the 
Opposition — to  drown  debate  upon  the  bill  by  pure 
noise — drown  it  out  and  stop  it.  The  debate  being 
thus  ended,  the  vote  upon  the  reference  would  follow 
—with  victory  for  the  government.  But  into  the 
government's  calculations  had  not  entered  the 
possibility  of  a  single-barreled  speech  which  should 
occupy  the  entire  time-limit  of  the  sitting,  and  also 
get  itself  delivered  in  spite  of  all  the  noise.  Goliah 
was  not  expecting  David.  But  David  was  there; 
and  during  twelve  hours  he  tranquilly  pulled  statis 
tical,  historical,  and  argumentative  pebbles  out  of  his 
scrip  and  slung  them  at  the  giant;  and  when  he  was 
done  he  was  victor,  and  the  day  was  saved. 

In  the  English  House  an  obstructionist  has  held 
the  floor  with  Bible-readings  and  other  outside 
matters;  but  Dr.  Lecher  could  not  have  that  restful 
and  recuperative  privilege — he  must  confine  himself 
strictly  to  the  subject  before  the  House.  More  than 
once,  when  the  President  could  not  hear  him  because 
of  the  general  tumult,  he  sent  persons  to  listen  and 
report  as  to  whether  the  orator  was  speaking  to  the 
subject  or  not. 

The  subject  was  a  peculiarly  difficult  one,  and  it 
would  have  troubled  any  other  deputy  to  stick  to 
it  three  hours  without  exhausting  his  ammunition, 
because  it  required  a  vast  and  intimate  knowledge- 
detailed  and  particularized  knowledge — of  the  com 
mercial,  railroading,  financial,  and  international 
banking  relations  existing  between  two  great  sover 
eignties,  Hungary  and  the  Empire.  But  Dr.  Lecher 
is  President  of  the  Board  of  Trade  of  his  city  of 

15  217 


MARK    TWAIN 

Briinn,  and  was  master  of  the  situation.  His  speech 
was  not  formally  prepared.  He  had  a  few  notes 
jotted  down  for  his  guidance;  he  had  his  facts  in  his 
head ;  his  heart  was  in  his  work ;  and  for  twelve  hours 
he  stood  there,  undisturbed  by  the  clamor  around 
him,  and  with  grace  and  ease  and  confidence  poured 
out  the  riches  of  his  mind,  in  closely  reasoned  argu 
ments,  clothed  in  eloquent  and  faultless  phrasing. 

He  is  a  young  man  of  thirty-seven.  He  is  tall 
and  well  proportioned,  and  has  cultivated  and  forti 
fied  his  muscle  by  mountain-climbing.  If  he  were  a 
little  handsomer  he  would  sufficiently  reproduce  for 
me  the  Chauncey  Depew  of  the  great  New  England 
dinner  nights  of  some  years  ago;  he  has  Depew's 
charm  of  manner  and  graces  of  language  and  delivery. 

There  was  but  one  way  for  Dr.  Lecher  to  hold  the 
floor — he  must  stay  on  his  legs.  If  he  should  sit 
down  to  rest  a  moment,  the  floor  would  be  taken 
from  him  by  the  enemy  in  the  Chair.  When  he  had 
been  talking  three  or  four  hours  he  himself  proposed 
an  adjournment,  in  order  that  he  might  get  some  rest 
from  his  wearing  labors;  but  he  limited  his  motion 
with  the  condition  that  if  it  was  lost  he  should  be 
allowed  to  continue  his  speech,  and  if  it  carried  he 
should  have  the  floor  at  the  next  sitting.  Wolf  was 
now  appeased,  and  withdrew  his  own  thousand- 
times  offered  motion,  and  Dr.  Lecher's  was  voted 
upon — and  lost.  So  he  went  on  speaking. 

By  one  o'clock  in  the  morning,  excitement  and 
noise-making  had  tired  out  nearly  everybody  but  the 
orator.  Gradually  the  seats  of  the  Right  underwent 
depopulation;  the  occupants  had  slipped  out  to  the 

218 


STIRRING    TIMES    IN    AUSTRIA 

refreshment-rooms  to  eat  and  drink,  or  to  the  cor 
ridors  to  chat.  Some  one  remarked  that  there  was 
no  longer  a  quorum  present,  and  moved  a  call  of  the 
House.  The  Chair  (Vice-President  Dr.  Kramarz) 
refused  to  put  it  to  a  vote.  There  was  a  small  dis 
pute  over  the  legality  of  this  ruling,  but  the  Chair 
held  its  ground. 

The  Left  remained  on  the  battle-field  to  support 
their  champion.  He  went  steadily  on  with  his 
speech;  and  always  it  was  strong,  virile,  felicitous, 
and  to  the  point.  He  was  earning  applause,  and 
this  enabled  his  party  to  turn  that  fact  to  account. 
Now  and  then  they  applauded  him  a  couple  of  min 
utes  on  a  stretch,  and  during  that  time  he  could  stop 
speaking  and  rest  his  voice  without  having  the  floor 
taken  from  him. 

At  a  quarter  to  two  a  member  of  the  Left  de 
manded  that  Dr.  Lecher  be  allowed  a  recess  for  rest, 
and  said  that  the  Chairman  was  ''heartless."  Dr. 
Lecher  himself  asked  for  ten  minutes.  The  Chair 
allowed  him  five.  Before  the  time  had  run  out  Dr. 
Lecher  was  on  his  feet  again. 

Wolf  burst  out  again  with  a  motion  to  adjourn. 
Refused  by  the  Chair.  Wolf  said  the  whole  par 
liament  wasn't  worth  a  pinch  of  powder.  The 
Chair  retorted  that  that  was  true  in  a  case  where 
a  single  member  was  able  to  make  all  parliamentary 
business  impossible.  Dr.  Lecher  continued  his 
speech. 

The  members  of  the  Majority  went  out  by  detach 
ments  from  time  to  time  and  took  naps  upon  sofas 
in  the  reception-rooms;  and  also  refreshed  them- 

219 


MARK    TWAIN 

selves  with  food  and  drink — in  quantities  nearly 
unbelievable — but  the  Minority  stayed  loyally  by 
their  champion.  Some  distinguished  deputies  of  the 
Majority  stayed  by  him,  too,  compelled  thereto  by 
admiration  of  his  great  performance.  When  a  man 
has  been  speaking  eight  hours,  is  it  conceivable  that 
he  can  still  be  interesting,  still  fascinating?  When 
Dr.  Lecher  had  been  speaking  eight  hours  he  was 
still  compactly  surrounded  by  friends  who  would  not 
leave  him  and  by  foes  (of  all  parties)  who  could  not ; 
and  all  hung  enchanted  and  wondering  upon  his 
words,  and  all  testified  their  admiration  with  con 
stant  and  cordial  outbursts  of  applause.  Surely  this 
was  a  triumph  without  precedent  in  history. 

During  the  twelve-hour  effort  friends  brought  to 
the  orator  three  glasses  of  wine,  four  cups  of  coffee, 
and  one  glass  of  beer  —  a  most  stingy  reinforce 
ment  of  his  wasting  tissues,  but  the  hostile  Chair 
would  permit  no  addition  to  it.  But  no  matter,  the 
Chair  could  not  beat  that  man.  He  was  a  garrison 
holding  a  fort,  and  was  not  to  be  starved  out. 

When  he  had  been  speaking  eight  hours  his  pulse 
was  seventy -two;  when  he  had  spoken  twelve,  it 
was  one  hundred. 

He  finished  his  long  speech  in  these  terms,  as  nearly 
as  a  permissibly  free  translation  can  convey  them : 

"I  will  now  hasten  to  close  my  examination  of 
the  subject.  I  conceive  that  we  of  the  Left  have 
made  it  clear  to  the  honorable  gentlemen  of  the  other 
side  of  the  House  that  we  are  stirred  by  no  in 
temperate  enthusiasm  for  this  measure  in  its  present 
shape.  .  ,  , 

220 


STIRRING    TIMES    IN    AUSTRIA 

"What  we  require,  and  shall  fight  for  with  all 
lawful  weapons,  is  a  formal,  comprehensive,  and 
definitive  solution  and  settlement  of  these  vexed 
matters.  We  desire  the  restoration  of  the  earlier 
condition  of  things;  the  cancellation  of  all  this  in 
capable  government's  pernicious  trades  with  Hun 
gary;  and  then — release  from  the  sorry  burden  of 
the  Badeni  ministry ! 

"I  voice  the  hope — I  know  not  if  it  will  be  ful 
filled — I  voice  the  deep  and  sincere  and  patriotic 
hope  that  the  committee  into  whose  hands  this  bill 
will  eventually  be  committed  will  take  its  stand  upon 
high  ground,  and  will  return  the  Ausgkich-Pro- 
visorium  to  this  House  in  a  form  which  shall  make 
it  the  protector  and  promoter  alike  of  the  great 
interests  involved  and  of  the  honor  of  our  father 
land."  After  a  pause,  turning  toward  the  govern 
ment  benches:  "But  in  any  case,  gentlemen  of  the 
Majority,  make  sure  of  this:  henceforth,  as  before, 
you  will  find  us  at  our  post.  The  Germans  of 
Austria  will  neither  surrender  nor  die!" 

Then  burst  a  storm  of  applause  which  rose  and 
fell,  rose  and  fell,  burst  out  again  and  again  and 
again,  explosion  after  explosion,  hurricane  after 
hurricane,  with  no  apparent  promise  of  ever  coming 
to  an  end;  and  meantime  the  whole  Left  was  surg 
ing  and  weltering  about  the  champion,  all  bent  upon 
wringing  his  hand  and  congratulating  him  and  glori 
fying  him. 

Finally  he  got  away,  and  went  home  and  ate  five 
loaves  and  twelve  baskets  of  fishes,  read  the  morning 
papers,  slept  three  hours,  took  a  short  drive,  then 

221 


MARK    TWAIN 

returned  to  the  House  and  sat  out  the  rest  of  the 
thirty-three-hour  session. 

To  merely  stand  up  in  one  spot  twelve  hours  on 
a  stretch  is  a  feat  which  very  few  men  could  achieve ; 
to  add  to  the  task  the  utterance  of  a  hundred  thou 
sand  words  would  be  beyond  the  possibilities  of  the 
most  of  those  few;  to  superimpose  the  requirement 
that  the  words  should  be  put  into  the  form  of  a 
compact,  coherent,  and  symmetrical  oration  would 
probably  rule  out  the  rest  of  the  few,  bar  Dr.  Lecher. 

III.    CURIOUS    PARLIAMENTARY    ETIQUETTE 

In  consequence  of  Dr.  Lecher's  twelve-hour  speech 
and  the  other  obstructions  furnished  by  the  Mi 
nority,  the  famous  thirty-three-hour  sitting  of  the 
House  accomplished  nothing.  The  government  side 
had  made  a  supreme  effort,  assisting  itself  with  all 
the  helps  at  hand,  both  lawful  and  unlawful,  yet  had 
failed  to  get  the  Ausgleich  into  the  hands  of  a  com 
mittee.  This  was  a  severe  defeat.  The  Right  was 
mortified,  the  Left  jubilant. 

Parliament  was  adjourned  for  a  week — to  let  the 
members  cool  off,  perhaps — a  sacrifice  of  precious 
time,  for  but  two  months  remained  in  which  to  carry 
the  all-important  Ausgleich  to  a  consummation. 

If  I  have  reported  the  behavior  of  the  House  in 
telligibly,  the  reader  has  been  surprised  at  it,  and  has 
wondered  whence  these  lawmakers  come  and  what 
they  are  made  of;  and  he  has  probably  supposed  that 
the  conduct  exhibited  at  the  Long  Sitting  was  far 
out  of  the  common,  and  due  to  special  excitement 

222 


STIRRING    TIMES    IN    AUSTRIA 

and  irritation.  As  to  the  make-up  of  the  House,  it 
is  this:  the  deputies  come  from  all  the  walks  of  life 
and  from  all  the  grades  of  society.  There  are  princes, 
counts,  barons,  priests,  peasants,  mechanics,  laborers, 
lawyers,  judges,  physicians,  professors,  merchants, 
bankers,  shopkeepers.  They  are  religious  men,  they 
are  earnest,  sincere,  devoted,  and  they  hate  the  Jews. 
The  title  of  Doctor  is  so  common  in  the  House  that 
one  may  almost  say  that  the  deputy  who  does  not 
bear  it  is  by  that  reason  conspicuous.  I  am  assured 
that  it  is  not  a  self -granted  title,  and  not  an  honorary 
one,  but  an  earned  one;  that  in  Austria  it  is  very 
seldom  conferred  as  a  mere  compliment;  that  in 
Austria  the  degrees  of  Doctor  of  Music,  Doctor  of 
Philosophy,  and  so  on,  are  not  conferred  by  the 
seats  of  learning;  and  so,  when  an  Austrian  is  called 
Doctor  it  means  that  he  is  either  a  lawyer  or  a 
physician,  and  that  he  is  not  a  self-educated  man, 
but  is  college-bred,  and  has  been  diplomaed  for  merit. 

That  answers  the  question  of  the  constitution  of 
the  House.  Now  as  to  the  House's  curious  manners. 
The  manners  exhibited  by  this  convention  of  Doctors 
were  not  at  that  time  being  tried  as  a  wholly  new 
experiment.  I  will  go  back  to  a  previous  sitting  in 
order  to  show  that  the  deputies  had  already  had 
some  practice. 

There  had  been  an  incident.  The  dignity  of  the 
House  had  been  wounded  by  improprieties  indulged 
in  in  its  presence  by  a  couple  of  the  members.  This 
matter  was  placed  in  the  hands  of  a  committee  to 
determine  where  the  guilt  lay,  and  the  degree  of  it, 
and  also  to  suggest  the  punishment.  The  chairman 

223 


MARK    TWAIN 

of  the  committee  brought  in  his  report.  By  this  it 
appeared  that,  in  the  course  of  a  speech,  Deputy 
Schrarnmel  said  that  religion  had  no  proper  place 
in  the  public  schools — it  was  a  private  matter. 
Whereupon  Deputy  Gregorig  shouted,  ''How  about 
free  love!" 

To  this,  Deputy  Iro  flung  out  this  retort:  "Soda- 
water  at  the  Wimberger!" 

This  appeared  to  deeply  offend  Deputy  Gregorig, 
who  shouted  back  at  Iro,  "You  cowardly  blather 
skite,  say  that  again!" 

The  committee  had  sat  three  hours.  Gregorig 
had  apologized;  Iro  had  explained.  Iro  explained 
that  he  didn't  say  anything  about  soda-water  at  the 
Wimberger.  He  explained  in  writing,  and  was  very 
explicit:  "I  declare  upon  my  word  of  honor  that  I 
did  riot  say  the  words  attributed  to  me." 

Unhappily  for  his  word  of  honor,  it  was  proved  by 
the  official  stenographers  and  by  the  testimony  of 
several  deputies  that  he  did  say  them. 

The  committee  did  not  officially  know  why  the 
apparently  inconsequential  reference  to  soda-water 
at  the  Wimberger  should  move  Deputy  Gregorig  to 
call  the  utterer  of  it  a  cowardly  blatherskite;  still, 
after  proper  deliberation,  it  was  of  the  opinion  that 
the  House  ought  to  formally  censure  the  whole 
business.  This  verdict  seems  to  have  been  regarded 
as  sharply  severe.  I  think  so  because  Deputy  Dr. 
Lueger,  Burgermeister  of  Vienna,  felt  it  a  duty  to 
soften  the  blow  to  his  friend  Gregorig  by  showing 
that  the  soda-water  remark  was  not  so  innocuous  as 
it  might  look;  that  indeed  Gregorig's  tough  retort 

224 


STIRRING    TIMES    IN    AUSTRIA 

was  justifiable — and  he  proceeded  to  explain  why. 
He  read  a  number  of  scandalous  post-cards  which 
he  intimated  had  proceeded  from  Iro,  as  indicated 
by  the  handwriting,  though  they  were  anonymous. 
Some  of  them  were  posted  to  Gregorig  at  his  place 
of  business,  and  could  have  been  read  by  all  his 
subordinates;  the  others  were  posted  to  Gregorig' s 
wife.  Lueger  did  not  say — but  everybody  knew— 
that  the  cards  referred  to  a  matter  of  town  gossip 
which  made  Mr.  Gregorig  a  chief  actor  in  a  tavern 
scene  where  siphon-squirting  played  a  prominent  and 
humorous  part,  and  wherein  women  had  a  share. 

There  were  several  of  the  cards;  more  than  several, 
in  fact;  no  fewer  than  five  were  sent  in  one  day, 
Dr.  Lueger  read  some  of  them,  and  described  others. 
Some  of  them  had  pictures  on  them;  one  a  picture 
of  a  hog  with  a  monstrous  snout,  and  beside  it  a 
squirting  soda-siphon;  below  it  some  sarcastic  dog 
gerel. 

Gregorig  deals  in  shirts,  cravats,  etc.  One  of  the 
cards  bore  these  words:  "Much  respected  Deputy 
and  collar-sewer — or  stealer." 

Another:  "Hurrah  for  the  Christian-Social  work 
among  the  women  assemblages!  Hurrah  for  the 
soda-squirt er!"  Comment  by  Dr.  Lueger:  "I  can 
not  venture  to  read  the  rest  of  that  one,  nor  the 
signature,  either." 

Another:  "Would  you  mind  telling  me  if  .  .  ." 

Comment  by  Dr.  Lueger:  "The  rest  of  it  is  not 
properly  readable.'* 

To  Deputy  Gregorig's  wife:  "Much  respected 
Madam  Gregorig, —  The  undersigned  desires  an 


MARK    TWAIN 

invitation  to  the  next  soda-squirt."  Comment  by 
Dr.  Lueger:  "Neither  the  rest  of  the  card  nor  the 
signature  can  I  venture  to  read  to  the  House,  so 
vulgar  are  they." 

The  purpose  of  this  card — to  expose  Gregorig 
to  his  family — was  repeated  in  others  of  these 
anonymous  missives. 

The  House,  by  vote,  censured  the  two  improper 
deputies. 

This  may  have  had  a  modifying  effect  upon  the 
phraseology  of  the  membership  for  a  while,  and  upon 
its  general  exuberance  also,  but  it  was  not  for  long. 
As  has  been  seen,  it  had  become  lively  once  more 
on  the  night  of  the  Long  Sitting.  At  the  next 
sitting  after  the  long  one  there  was  certainly  no  lack 
of  liveliness.  The  President  was  persistently  ignor 
ing  the  Rules  of  the  House  in  the  interest  of  the 
government  side,  and  the  Minority  were  in  an  un 
appeasable  fury  about  it.  The  ceaseless  din  and 
uproar,  the  shouting  and  stamping  and  desk-bang 
ing,  were  deafening,  but  through  it  all  burst  voices 
now  and  then  that  made  themselves  heard.  Some 
of  the  remarks  were  of  a  very  candid  sort,  and  I 
believe  that  if  they  had  been  uttered  in  our  House 
of  Representatives  they  would  have  attracted  at 
tention.  I  will  insert  some  samples  here.  Not  in 
their  order,  but  selected  on  their  merits: 

Dr.  Mayreder  (to  the  President).  "You  have 
lied!  You  conceded  the  floor  to  me;  make  it  good, 
or  you  have  lied!" 

Mr.  Glockner   (to  the  President).   "Leave!    Get 

out!" 

226 


STIRRING    TIMES    IN    AUSTRIA 

Wolf  (indicating  the  President).  "There  sits  a 
man  to  whom  a  certain  title  belongs!" 

Unto  Wolf,  who  is  continuously  reading,  in  a 
powerful  voice,  from  a  newspaper,  arrive  these  per 
sonal  remarks  from  the  Majority:  "Oh,  shut  your 
mouth!"  "Put  him  out!"  "Out  with  him!"  Wolf 
stops  reading  a  moment  to  shout  at  Dr.  Lueger, 
who  has  the  floor,  but  cannot  get  a  hearing,  "Please, 
Betrayer  of  the  People,  begin!" 

Dr.  Lueger.  "Meine  Herren— "  ["Oho!"  and 
groans.] 

Wolf.  ''That's  the  holy  light  of  the  Christian 
Socialists!" 

Mr.  Kletzenbauer  (Christian  Socialist).  "Dam 
nation!  are  you  ever  going  to  quiet  down?" 

Wolf  discharges  a  galling  remark  at  Mr.  Wohl- 
meyer. 

Wohlmeyer  (responding).  "You  Jew,  you!" 

There  is  a  moment's  lull,  and  Dr.  Lueger  begins 
his  speech.  Graceful,  handsome  man,  with  winning 
manners  and  attractive  bearing,  a  bright  and  easy 
speaker,  and  is  said  to  know  how  to  trim  his  political 
sails  to  catch  any  favoring  wind  that  blows.  He 
manages  to  say  a  few  words,  then  the  tempest  over 
whelms  him  again. 

Wolf  stops  reading  his  paper  a  moment  to  say  a 
drastic  thing  about  Lueger  and  his  Christian-Social 
pieties,  which  sets  the  C.  S.'s  in  a  sort  of  frenzy. 

Mr.  Vieloklawek.  "You  leave  the  Christian  Social 
ists  alone,  you  word-of -honor-breaker !  Obstruct 
all  you  want  to,  but  you  leave  them  alone!  You've 
no  business  in  this  House;  you  belong  in  a  gin-mill!" 

227 


MARK    TWAIN 

Mr.  Prochazka.  "In  a  lunatic  asylum,  you  mean !" 

Vielohlawek.  "It's  a  pity  that  such  a  man  should 
be  leader  of  the  Germans;  he  disgraces  the  German 
name!" 

Dr.  Scheicher.  "It's  a  shame  that  the  like  of  him 
should  insult  us." 

Strohback  (to  Wolf).  "Contemptible  cub — we  will 
bounce  thee  out  of  this!"  [It  is  inferable  that  the 
"thee"  is  not  intended  to  indicate  affection  this 
time,  but  to  reinforce  and  emphasize  Mr.  Stroh- 
bach's  scorn.] 

Dr.  Scheicher.  "His  insults  are  of  no  consequence. 
He  wants  his  ears  boxed." 

Dr.  Lueger  (to  Wolf).  "You'd  better  worry  a  trifle 
over  your  Iro's  word  of  honor.  You  are  behaving 
like  a  street  arab." 

Dr.  Scheicher.  "It's  infamous!" 

Dr.  Lueger.  "And  these  shameless  creatures  are 
the  leaders  of  the  German  People's  Party!" 

Meantime  Wolf  goes  whooping  along  with  his 
newspaper-readings  in  great  contentment. 

Dr.Pattai.  "Shut  up!  Shut  up!  Shut  up!  You 
haven't  the  floor!" 

Strohbach.  "The  miserable  cub!" 

Dr.  Lueger  (to  Wolf,  raising  his  voice  strenuously 
above  the  storm).  "You  are  a  wholly  honorless 
street  brat!"  [A  voice,  "Fire  the  rapscallion  out!" 
But  Wolf's  soul  goes  marching  noisily  on,  just  the 
same.] 

Schonerer  (vast  and  muscular,  and  endowed  with 
the  most  powerful  voice  in  the  Reichsrath;  comes 
plowing  down  through  the  standing  crowds,  red, 

228 


STIRRING    TIMES    IN    AUSTRIA 

and  choking  with  anger;  halts  before  Deputy  Wohl- 
meyer,  grabs  a  rule  and  smashes  it  with  a  blow  upon 
a  desk,  threatens  Wohlmeyer's  face  with  his  fist, 
and  bellows  out  some  personalities,  and  a  promise). 
''Only  you  wait — we'll  teach  you!"  [A  whirlwind 
of  offensive  retorts  assails  him  from  the  band  of 
meek  and  humble  Christian  Socialists  compacted 
around  their  leader,  that  distinguished  religious  ex 
pert,  Dr.  Lueger,  Burgermeister  of  Vienna.  Our 
breath  comes  in  excited  gasps  now,  and  we  are 
full  of  hope.  We  imagine  that  we  are  back  fifty 
years  ago  in  the  Arkansas  Legislature,  and  we 
think  we  know  what  is  going  to  happen,  and  are 
glad  we  came,  and  glad  we  are  up  in  the  gallery, 
out  of  the  way,  where  we  can  see  the  whole  thing 
and  yet  not  have  to  supply  any  of  the  material  for 
the  inquest.  However,  as  it  turns  out,  our  con 
fidence  is  abused,  our  hopes  are  misplaced.] 

Dr.  Pattai  (wildly  excited).  "You  quiet  down,  or 
we  shall  turn  ourselves  loose!  There  will  be  a  cuff 
ing  of  ears!" 

Prochazka  (in  a  fury).  "No — not  ear-boxing,  but 
genuine  blows!'1 

Vielohlawek.  "I  would  rather  take  my  hat  off  to 
a  Jew  than  to  Wolf!" 

Strohbach  (to  Wolf).  "Jew-flunky!  Here  we  have 
been  fighting  the  Jews  for  ten  years,  and  now  you 
are  helping  them  to  power  again.  How  much  do 
you  get  for  it?" 

Holansky.  "What  he  wants  is  a  strait- jacket!" 

Wolf  continues  his  readings.  It  is  a  market  re 
port  now, 

229 


MARK    TWAIN 

Remark  flung  across  the  House  to  Schonerer: 
"Die  Grossmutter  aufdem  Misthaufen  erzeugt  warden!" 

It  will  be  judicious  not  to  translate  that.  Its 
flavor  is  pretty  high,  in  any  case,  but  it  becomes  par 
ticularly  gamey  when  you  remember  that  the  first 
gallery  was  well  stocked  with  ladies. 

Apparently  it  was  a  great  hit.  It  fetched  thunders 
of  joyous  enthusiasm  out  of  the  Christian  Socialists, 
and  in  their  rapture  they  flung  biting  epithets  with 
wasteful  liberality  at  specially  detested  members  of 
the  Opposition ;  among  others,  this  one  at  Schonerer : 
"Bordell  in  der  Krugerstrasse!"  Then  they  added 
these  words,  which  they  whooped,  howled,  and  also 
even  sang,  in  a  deep-voiced  chorus:  "Schmul  Leeb 
Kokn!  Schmul  Leeb  Kohnl  Schmul  Leeb  Kohn!" 
and  made  it  splendidly  audible  above  the  banging 
of  desk-boards  and  the  rest  of  the  roaring  cyclone 
of  fiendish  noises.  [A  gallery  witticism  comes  flit 
ting  by  from  mouth  to  mouth  around  the  great 
curve:  "The  swan -song  of  Austrian  representa 
tive  government!"  You  can  note  its  progress  by 
the  applausive  smiles  and  nods  it  gets  as  it  skims 
along.] 

Kletzenbauer.  "Holofernes,  where  is  Judith?" 
[Storm  of  laughter.] 

Gregorig  (the  shirt-merchant) .  ' '  This  Wolf -Theater 
is  costing  six  thousand  florins!" 

Wolf  (with  sweetness).  "Notice  him,  gentlemen; 
it  is  Mr.  Gregorig."  [Laughter.] 

Vielohlawek  (to  Wolf).  "You  Judas!" 

Schneider.  "Brothel-Knight!" 

Chorus  of  Voices.  "East-German  offal-tub!" 

230 


STIRRING    TIMES    IN    AUSTRIA 

And  so  the  war  of  epithets  crashes  along,  with 
never- diminishing  energy,  for  a  couple  of  hours. 

The  ladies  in  the  gallery  were  learning.  That  was 
well;  for  by  and  by  ladies  will  form  a  part  of  the 
membership  of  all  the  legislatures  in  the  world;  as 
soon  as  they  can  prove  competency  they  will  be 
admitted.  At  present,  men  only  are  competent  to 
legislate;  therefore  they  look  down  upon  women,  and 
would  feel  degraded  if  they  had  to  have  them  for 
colleagues  in  their  high  calling. 

Wolf  is  yelling  another  market  report  now. 

Gessman.     "Shut  up,  infamous  louse-brat!" 

During  a  momentary  lull  Dr.  Lueger  gets  a  hearing 
for  three  sentences  of  his  speech.  They  demand  and 
require  that  the  President  shall  suppress  the  four 
noisiest  members  of  the  Opposition. 

Wolf  (with  a  that-settles-it  toss  of  the  head). 
"The  shifty  trickster  of  Vienna  has  spoken!" 

Iro  belonged  to  Schonerer's  party.  The  word-of- 
honor  incident  has  given  it  a  new  name.  Gregorig 
is  a  Christian  Socialist,  and  hero  of  the  post-cards 
and  the  Wimberger  soda-squirting  incident.  He 
stands  vast  and  conspicuous,  and  conceited  and  self- 
satisfied,  and  roosterish  and  inconsequential,  at 
Lueger's  elbow,  and  is  proud  and  cocky  to  be  in  such 
great  company.  He  looks  very  well  indeed;  really 
majestic,  and  aware  of  it.  He  crows  out  his  little 
empty  remark,  now  and  then,  and  looks  as  pleased 
as  if  he  had  been  delivered  of  the  Ausgleich.  Indeed, 
he  does  look  notably  fine.  He  wears  almost  the  only 
dress  vest  on  the  floor;  it  exposes  a  continental 
spread  of  white  shirt-front;  his  hands  are  posed  at 
16  231 


MARK    TWAIN 

ease  in  the  lips  of  his  trousers  pockets;  his  head  is 
tilted  back  complacently;  he  is  attitudinizing;  he  is 
playing  to  the  gallery.  However,  they  are  all  doing 
that.  It  is  curious  to  see.  Men  who  only  vote,  and 
can't  make  speeches,  and  don't  know  how  to  invent 
witty  ejaculations,  wander  about  the  vacated  parts 
of  the  floor,  and  stop  in  a  good  place  and  strike 
attitudes — attitudes  suggestive  of  weighty  thought, 
mostly — and  glance  furtively  up  at  the  galleries  to 
see  how  it  works ;  or  a  couple  will  come  together  and 
shake  hands  in  an  artificial  way,  and  laugh  a  gay 
manufactured  laugh,  and  do  some  constrained  and 
self-conscious  attitudinizing;  and  they  steal  glances 
at  the  galleries  to  see  if  they  are  getting  notice. 
It  is  like  a  scene  on  the  stage — by-play  by  minor 
actors  at  the  back  while  the  stars  do  the  great  work 
at  the  front.  Even  Count  Badeni  attitudinizes  for 
a  moment;  strikes  a  reflective  Napoleonic  attitude 
of  fine  picturesqueness — but  soon  thinks  better  of 
it  and  desists.  There  are  two  who  do  not  attitudin 
ize — poor  harried  and  insulted  President  Abraham- 
owicz,  who  seems  wholly  miserable,  and  can  find  no 
way  to  put  in  the  dreary  time  but  by  swinging  his 
bell  and  by  discharging  occasional  remarks  which 
nobody  can  hear;  and  a  resigned  and  patient  priest, 
who  sits  lonely  in  a  great  vacancy  on  Majority 
territory  and  munches  an  apple. 

Schonerer  uplifts  his  fog-horn  of  a  voice  and 
shakes  the  roof  with  an  insult  discharged  at  the 
Majority. 

Dr.  Lueger.  "The  Honorless  Party  would  better 
keep  still  here!" 

232 


STIRRING    TIMES    IN    AUSTRIA 

Gregroig  (the  echo,  swelling  out  his  shirt-front). 
"Yes,  keep  quiet,  pimp!" 

Schonerer   (to  Lueger).   "Political  mountebank!'* 

Prochazka  (to  Schonerer).  "Drunken  clown!'* 

During  the  final  hour  of  the  sitting  many  happy 
phrases  were  distributed  through  the  proceedings. 
Among  them  were  these — and  they  are  strikingly 
good  ones: 

Blatherskite ! 

Blackguard ! 

Scoundrel ! 

Brothel-daddy! 

This  last  was  the  contribution  of  Dr.  Gessman, 
and  gave  great  satisfaction.  And  deservedly.  It 
seems  to  me  that  it  was  one  of  the  most  sparkling 
things  that  was  said  during  the  whole  evening. 

At  half-past  two  in  the  morning  the  House  ad 
journed.  The  victory  was  with  the  Opposition. 
No;  not  quite  that.  The  effective  part  of  it  was 
snatched  away  from  them  by  an  unlawful  exercise 
of  Presidential  force — another  contribution  toward 
driving  the  mistreated  Minority  out  of  their  minds. 

At  other  sittings  of  the  parliament,  gentlemen  of 
the  Opposition,  shaking  their  fists  toward  the  Presi 
dent,  addressed  him  as  "Polish  Dog."  At  one  sit 
ting  an  angry  deputy  turned  upon  a  colleague  and 

shouted : 

a i»» 

You  must  try  to  imagine  what  it  was.     If  I  should 

offer  it  even  in  the  original  it  would  probably  not  get 

by  the  Magazine  editor's  blue  pencil;    to  offer  a 

translation  would  be  to  waste  my  ink,  of  course, 

16  233 


MARK    TWAIN 

This  remark  was  frankly  printed  in  its  entirety  by 
one  of  the  Vienna  dailies,  but  the  others  disguised 
the  toughest  half  of  it  with  stars. 

If  the  reader  will  go  back  over  this  chapter  and 
gather  its  array  of  extraordinary  epithets  into  a 
bunch  and  examine  them,  he  will  marvel  at  two 
things :  how  this  convention  of  gentlemen  could  con 
sent  to  use  such  gross  terms ;  and  why  the  users  were 
allowed  to  get  out  of  the  place  alive.  There  is  no 
way  to  understand  this  strange  situation.  If  every 
man  in  the  House  were  a  professional  blackguard, 
and  had  his  home  in  a  sailor  boarding-house,  one 
could  still  not  understand  it ;  for  although  that  sort 
do  use  such  terms,  they  never  take  them.  These  men 
are  not  professional  blackguards;  they  are  mainly 
gentlemen,  and  educated;  yet  they  use  the  terms, 
and  take  them,  too.  They  really  seem  to  attach  no 
consequence  to  them.  One  cannot  say  that  they  act 
like  school-boys;  for  that  is  only  almost  true,  not  en 
tirely.  School-boys  blackguard  each  other  fiercely, 
and  by  the  hour,  and  one  would  think  that  nothing 
would  ever  come  of  it  but  noise;  but  that  would 
be  a  mistake.  Up  to  a  certain  limit  the  result  would 
be  noise  only,  but  that  limit  overstepped,  trouble 
would  follow  right  away.  There  are  certain  phrases 
— phrases  of  a  peculiar  character — phrases  of  the 
nature  of  that  reference  to  Schonerer's  grandmother, 
for  instance,  which  not  even  the  most  spiritless 
school-boy  in  the  English-speaking  world  would  al 
low  to  pass  unavenged.  One  difference  between 
school-boys  and  the  lawmakers  of  the  Reichsrath 
8eems  to  be  that  the  lawmakers  have  no  limit,  no 


STIRRING    TIMES    IN    AUSTRIA 

danger-line.  Apparently  they  may  call  each  other 
what  they  please,  and  go  home  unmutilated. 

Now,  in  fact,  they  did  have  a  scuffle  on  two  occa 
sions,  but  it  was  not  on  account  of  names  called. 
There  has  been  no  scuffle  where  that  was  the  cause. 

It  is  not  to  be  inferred  that  the  House  lacks  a 
sense  of  honor  because  it  lacks  delicacy.  That 
would  be  an  error.  Iro  was  caught  in  a  lie,  and  it 
profoundly  disgraced  him.  The  House  cut  him, 
turned  its  back  upon  him.  He  resigned  his  seat; 
otherwise  he  would  have  been  expelled.  But  it  was 
lenient  with  Gregorig,  who  had  called  Iro  a  cowardly 
blatherskite  in  debate.  It  merely  went  through  the 
form  of  mildly  censuring  him.  That  did  not  trouble 
Gregorig. 

The  Viennese  say  of  themselves  that  they  are  an 
easy-going,  pleasure-loving  community,  making  the 
best  of  life,  and  not  taking  it  very  seriously.  Never 
theless,  they  are  grieved  about  the  ways  of  their 
parliament,  and  say  quite  frankly  that  they  are 
ashamed.  They  claim  that  the  low  condition  of  the 
parliament's  manners  is  new,  not  old.  A  gentleman 
who  was  at  the  head  of  the  government  twenty  years 
ago  confirms  this,  and  says  that  in  his  time  the  par 
liament  was  orderly  and  well  behaved.  An  English 
gentleman  of  long  residence  here  indorses  this,  and 
and  says  that  a  low  order  of  politicians  originated 
the  present  forms  of  questionable  speech  on  the 
stump  some  years  ago,  and  imported  them  into  the 
parliament.1  However,  some  day  there  will  be  a 

1  In  that  gracious  bygone  time  when  a  mild  and  good-tempered 
spirit  was  the  atmosphere  of  our  House,  when  the  manner  of  our 

235 


MARK    TWAIN 

Minister  of  Etiquette  and  a  sergeant-at-arms,  and 
then  things  will  go  better.  I  mean  if  parliament  and 
the  Constitution  survive  the  present  storm. 


IV.    THE    HISTORIC    CLIMAX 

During  the  whole  of  November  things  went  from 
bad  to  worse.  The  all-important  Ausgleick  remained 
hard  aground,  and  could  not  be  sparred  off.  Badeni's 
government  could  not  withdraw  the  Language  Ordi 
nance  and  keep  its  majority,  and  the  Opposition 
could  not  be  placated  on  easier  terms.  One  night, 
while  the  customary  pandemonium  was  crashing 
and  thundering  along  at  its  best,  a  fight  broke  out. 
It  was  a  surging,  struggling,  shoulder-to-shoulder 
scramble.  A  great  many  blows  were  struck.  Twice 
Schonerer  lifted  one  of  the  heavy  ministerial  fauteuils 
—some  say  with  one  hand — and  threatened  members 
of  the  Majority  with  it,  but  it  was  wrenched  away 
from  him;  a  member  hammered  Wolf  over  the  head 
with  the  President's  bell,  and  another  member  choked 
him;  a  professor  was  flung  down  and  belabored  with 
fists  and  choked;  he  held  up  an  open  penknife  as  a 
defense  against  the  blows;  it  was  snatched  from  him 
and  flung  to  a  distance;  it  hit  a  peaceful  Christian 
Socialist  who  wasn't  doing  anything,  and  brought 
blood  from  his  hand.  This  was  the  only  blood 
drawn.  The  men  who  got  hammered  and  choked 
looked  sound  and  well  next  day.  The  fists  and  the 

speakers  was  studiously  formal  and  academic,  and  the  storms  and 
explosions  of  to-day  were  wholly  unknown,"  etc. — Translation  of 
the  opening  remark  of  an  editorial  in  this  morning's  Neue  Freie  Presse, 
December  j, 

236 


STIRRING    TIMES    IN    AUSTRIA 

bell  were  not  properly  handled,  or  better  results 
would  have  been  apparent.  I  am  quite  sure  that 
the  fighters  were  not  in  earnest. 

On  Thanksgiving  day  the  sitting  was  a  history- 
making  one.  On  that  day  the  harried,  bedeviled, 
and  despairing  government  went  insane.  In  order 
to  free  itself  from  the  thraldom  of  the  Opposition  it 
committed  this  curiously  juvenile  crime :  it  moved  an 
important  change  of  the  Rules  of  the  House,  forbade 
debate  upon  the  motion,  put  it  to  a  stand-up  vote 
instead  of  ayes  and  noes,  and  then  gravely  claimed 
that  it  had  been  adopted;  whereas,  to  even  the 
dullest  witness — if  I  without  immodesty  may  pretend 
to  that  place — it  was  plain  that  nothing  legitimately 
to  be  called  a  vote  had  been  taken  at  all. 

I  think  that  Saltpeter  never  uttered  a  truer  thing 
than  when  he  said,  ''Whom  the  gods  would  destroy 
they  first  make  mad." 

Evidently  the  government's  mind  was  tottering 
when  this  bald  insult  to  the  House  was  the  best  way 
it  could  contrive  for  getting  out  of  the  frying-pan. 

The  episode  would  have  been  funny  if  the  matter 
at  stake  had  been  a  trifle;  but  in  the  circumstances 
it  was  pathetic.  The  usual  storm  was  raging  in  the 
House.  As  usual,  many  of  the  Majority  and  the 
most  of  the  Minority  were  standing  up — to  have  a 
better  chance  to  exchange  epithets  and  make  other 
noises.  Into  this  storm  Count  Falkenhayn  entered, 
with  his  paper  in  his  hand;  and  at  once  there  was  a 
rush  to  get  near  him  and  hear  him  read  his  motion. 
In  a  moment  he  was  walled  in  by  listeners.  The 
several  clauses  of  his  motion  were  loudly  applauded 

237 


MARK    TWAIN 

by  these  allies,  and  as  loudly  disapplauded — if  I  may 
invent  a  word — by  such  of  the  Opposition  as  could 
hear  his  voice.  When  he  took  his  seat  the  President 
promptly  put  the  motion — persons  desiring  to  vote 
in  the  affirmative,  stand  up  !  The  House  was  already 
standing  up;  had  been  standing  for  an  hour;  and  be 
fore  a  third  of  it  had  found  out  what  the  President 
had  been  saying,  he  had  proclaimed  the  adoption  of 
the  motion!  And  only  a  few  heard  that.  In  fact, 
when  that  House  is  legislating  you  can't  tell  it  from 
artillery  practice. 

You  will  realize  what  a  happy  idea  it  was  to  side 
track  the  lawful  ayes  and  noes  and  substitute  a 
stand-up  vote  by  this  fact:  that  a  little  later,  when 
a  deputation  of  deptuties  waited  upon  the  President 
and  asked  him  if  he  was  actually  willing  to  claim  that 
that  measure  had  been  passed,  he  answered,  "Yes 
— and  unanimously."  It  shows  that  in  effect  the 
whole  house  was  on  its  feet  when  that  trick  was 
sprung. 

The  "Lex  Falkenhayn,"  thus  strangely  born,  gave 
the  President  power  to  suspend  for  three  days  any 
deputy  who  should  continue  to  be  disorderly  after 
being  called  to  order  twice,  and  it  also  placed  at 
his  disposal  such  force  as  might  be  necessary  to 
make  the  suspension  effective.  So  the  House  had  a 
sergeant-at-arms  at  last,  and  a  more  formidable  one, 
as  to  power,  than  any  other  legislature  in  Christen 
dom  had  ever  possessed.  The  Lex  Falkenhayn  also 
gave  the  House  itself  authority  to  suspend  members 
for  thirty  days. 

On  these  terms  the  Ausgleich  could  be  put  through 

238 


STIRRING    TIMES    IN    AUSTRIA 

in  an  hour — apparently.  The  Opposition  would  have 
to  sit  meek  and  quiet,  and  stop  obstructing,  or  be 
turned  into  the  street,  deputy  after  deputy,  leaving 
the  Majority  an  un vexed  field  for  its  work. 

Certainly  the  thing  looked  well.  The  government 
was  out  of  the  frying-pan  at  last.  It  congratulated 
itself,  and  was  almost  girlishly  happy.  Its  stock  rose 
suddenly  from  less  than  nothing  to  a  premium.  It 
confessed  to  itself,  with  pride,  that  its  Lex  Falken- 
hayn  was  a  master-stroke — a  work  of  genius. 

However,  there  were  doubters;  men  who  were 
troubled,  and  believed  that  a  grave  mistake  had  been 
made.  It  might  be  that  the  Opposition  was  crushed, 
and  profitably  for  the  country,  too;  but  the  manner 
of  it — the  manner  of  it!  That  was  the  serious  part. 
It  could  have  far-reaching  results;  results  whose 
gravity  might  transcend  all  guessing.  It  might  be 
the  initial  step  toward  a  return  to  government  by 
force,  a  restoration  of  the  irresponsible  methods  of 
obsolete  times. 

There  were  no  vacant  seats  in  the  galleries  next 
day.  In  fact,  standing-room  outside  the  building 
was  at  a  premium.  There  were  crowds  there,  and 
a  glittering  array  of  helmeted  and  brass-buttoned 
police,  on  foot  and  on  horseback,  to  keep  them  from 
getting  too  much  excited.  No  one  could  guess  what 
was  going  to  happen,  but  every  one  felt  that  some 
thing  was  going  to  happen,  and  hoped  he  might  have 
a  chance  to  see  it,  or  at  least  get  the  news  of  it 
while  it  was  fresh. 

At  noon  the  House  was  empty — for  I  do  not 
count  myself.  Half  an  hour  later  the  two  galleries 

239 


MARK    TWAIN 

were  solidly  packed,  the  floor  still  empty.  Another 
half -hour  later  Wolf  entered  and  passed  to  his  place; 
then  other  deputies  began  to  stream  in,  among  them 
many  forms  and  faces  grown  familiar  of  late.  By 
one  o'clock  the  membership  was  present  in  full  force. 
A  band  of  Socialists  stood  grouped  against  the 
ministerial  desks,  in  the  shadow  of  the  Presidential 
tribune.  It  was  observable  that  these  official  strong 
holds  were  now  protected  against  rushes  by  bolted 
gates,  and  that  these  were  in  ward  of  servants 
wearing  the  House's  livery.  Also  the  removable 
desk-boards  had  been  taken  away,  and  nothing  left 
for  disorderly  members  to  slat  with. 

There  was  a  pervading,  anxious  hush — at  least 
what  stood  very  well  for  a  hush  in  that  house.  It 
was  believed  by  many  that  the  Opposition  was  cowed, 
and  that  there  would  be  no  more  obstruction,  no 
more  noise.  That  was  an  error. 

Presently  the  President  entered  by  the  distant  door 
to  the  right,  followed  by  Vice-President  Fuchs,  and 
the  two  took  their  way  down  past  the  Polish  benches 
toward  the  tribune.  Instantly  the  customary  storm 
of  noises  burst  out,  and  rose  higher  and  higher,  and 
wilder  and  wilder,  and  really  seemed  to  surpass  any 
thing  that  had  gone  before  it  in  that  place.  The 
President  took  his  seat,  and  begged  for  order,  but 
no  one  could  hear  him.  His  lips  moved — one  could 
see  that;  he  bowed  his  body  forward  appealingly,  and 
spread  his  great  hand  eloquently  over  his  breast — 
one  could  see  that;  but  as  concerned  his  uttered 
words,  he  probably  could  not  hear  them  himself. 
Below  him  was  that  crowd  of  two  dozen  Socialists 

340 


STIRRING    TIMES    IN    AUSTRIA 

glaring  up  at  him,  shaking  their  fists  at  him,  roaring 
imprecations  and  insulting  epithets  at  him.  This 
went  on  for  some  time.  Suddenly  the  Socialists 
burst  through  the  gates  and  stormed  up  through  the 
ministerial  benches,  and  a  man  in  a  red  cravat 
reached  up  and  snatched  the  documents  that  lay 
on  the  President's  desk  and  flung  them  abroad. 
The  next  moment  he  and  his  allies  were  struggling 
and  fighting  with  the  half-dozen  uniformed  servants 
who  were  there  to  protect  the  new  gates.  Mean 
time  a  detail  of  Socialists  had  swarmed  up  the 
side-steps  and  overflowed  the  President  and  the  Vice, 
and  were  crowding  and  shouldering  and  shoving 
them  out  of  the  place.  They  crowded  them  out, 
and  down  the  steps  and  across  the  House,  past  the 
Polish  benches ;  and  all  about  them  swarmed  hostile 
Poles  and  Czechs,  who  resisted  them.  One  could 
see  fists  go  up  and  come  down,  with  other  signs  and 
shows  of  a  heady  fight;  then  the  President  and  the 
Vice  disappeared  through  the  door  of  entrance,  and 
the  victorious  Socialists  turned  and  marched  back, 
mounted  the  tribune,  flung  the  President's  bell  and 
his  remaining  papers  abroad,  and  then  stood  there 
in  a  compact  little  crowd,  eleven  strong,  and  held 
the  place  as  if  it  were  a  fortress.  Their  friends  on 
the  floor  were  in  a  frenzy  of  triumph,  and  manifested 
it  in  their  deafening  way.  The  whole  House  was 
on  its  feet,  amazed  and  wondering. 

It  was  an  astonishing  situation,  and  imposingly 
dramatic.  Nobody  had  looked  for  this.  The  un 
expected  had  happened.  What  next?  But  there 
can  be  no  next;  the  play  is  over;  the  grand  climax 

241 


MARK    TWAIN 

is  reached;  the  possibilities  are  exhausted:  ring 
down  the  curtain. 

Not  yet.  That  distant  door  opens  again.  And 
now  we  see  what  history  will  be  talking  of  five 
centuries  hence :  a  uniformed  and  helmeted  battalion 
of  bronzed  and  stalwart  men  marching  in  double  file 
down  the  floor  of  the  House — a  free  parliament  pro 
faned  by  an  invasion  of  brute  force. 

It  was  an  odious  spectacle — odious  and  awful. 
For  one  moment  it  was  an  unbelievable  thing  —  a 
thing  beyond  all  credibility ;  it  must  be  a  delusion,  a 
dream,  a  nightmare.  But  no,  it  was  real — pitifully 
real,  shamefully  real,  hideously  real.  These  sixty 
policemen  had  been  soldiers,  and  they  went  at  their 
work  with  the  cold  unsentimental! ty  of  their  trade. 
They  ascended  the  steps  of  the  tribune,  laid  their 
hands  upon  the  inviolable  persons  of  the  represent 
atives  of  a  nation,  and  dragged  and  tugged  and 
hauled  them  down  the  steps  and  out  at  the  door; 
then  ranged  themselves  in  stately  military  array  in 
front  of  the  ministerial  estrade,  and  so  stood. 

It  was  a  tremendous  episode.  The  memory  of  it 
will  outlast  all  the  thrones  that  exist  to-day.  In  the 
whole  history  of  free  parliaments  the  like  of  it  had 
been  seen  but  three  times  before.  It  takes  its  im 
posing  place  among  the  world's  unforgetable  things. 
I  think  that  in  my  lifetime  I  have  not  twice  seen 
abiding  history  made  before  my  eyes,  but  I  know 
that  I  have  seen  it  once. 

Some  of  the  results  of  this  wild  freak  followed 
instantly.  The  Badeni  government  came  down  with 
a  crash;  there  was  a  popular  outbreak  or  two  in 

242 


STIRRING    TIMES    IN    AUSTRIA 

Vienna;  there  were  three  or  four  days  of  furious 
rioting  in  Prague,  followed  by  the  establishing  there 
of  martial  law;  the  Jews  and  Germans  were  harried 
and  plundered,  and  their  houses  destroyed ;  in  other 
Bohemian  towns  there  was  rioting — in  some  cases 
the  Germans  being  the  rioters,  in  others  the  Czechs 
—and  in  all  cases  the  Jew  had  to  roast,  no  matter 
which  side  he  was  on.  We  are  well  along  in  De 
cember  now ; 1  the  new  Minister- President  has  not 
been  able  to  patch  up  a  peace  among  the  warring 
factions  of  the  parliament,  therefore  there  is  no  use 
in  calling  it  together  again  for  the  present ;  public 
opinion  believes  that  parliamentary  government  and 
the  Constitution  are  actually  threatened  with  ex 
tinction,  and  that  the  permanency  of  the  monarchy 
itself  is  a  not  absolutely  certain  thing! 

Yes,  the  Lex  Falkenhayn  was  a  great  invention, 
and  did  what  was  claimed  for  it — it  got  the  govern 
ment  out  of  the  frying-pan. 

1  It  is  the  Qth.— M.  T. 


THE  GERMAN   CHICAGO 

I  FEEL  lost  in  Berlin.  It  has  no  resemblance  to 
the  city  I  had  supposed  it  was.  There  was  once 
a  Berlin  which  I  would  have  known,  from  descrip 
tions  in  books — the  Berlin  of  the  last  century  and  the 
beginning  of  the  present  one:  a  dingy  city  in  a  marsh, 
with  rough  streets,  muddy  and  lantern  -  lighted, 
dividing  straight  rows  of  ugly  houses  all  alike,  com 
pacted  into  blocks  as  square  and  plain  and  uniform 
and  monotonous  and  serious  as  so  many  dry-goods 
boxes.  But  that  Berlin  has  disappeared.  It  seems 
to  have  disappeared  totally,  and  left  no  sign.  The 
bulk  of  the  Berlin  of  to-day  has  about  it  no  sugges 
tion  of  a  former  period.  The  site  it  stands  on  has 
traditions  and  a  history,  but  the  city  itself  has  no 
traditions  and  no  history.  It  is  a  new  city;  the 
newest  I  have  ever  seen.  Chicago  would  seem 
venerable  beside  it;  for  there  are  many  old-looking 
districts  in  Chicago,  but  not  many  in  Berlin.  The 
main  mass  of  the  city  looks  as  if  it  had  been  built 
last  week,  the  rest  of  it  has  a  just  perceptibly  graver 
tone,  and  looks  as  if  it  might  be  six  or  even  eight 
months  old. 

The  next  feature  that  strikes  one  is  the  spacious 
ness,  the  roominess  of  the  city.  There  is  no  other 
city,  in  any  country,  whose  streets  are  so  generally 

244 


THE    GERMAN    CHICAGO 

wide.  Berlin  is  not  merely  a  city  of  wide  streets, 
it  is  the  city  of  wide  streets.  As  a  wide-street  city 
it  has  never  had  its  equal,  in  any  age  of  the  world. 
"Unter  den  Linden"  is  three  streets  in  one;  the 
Potsdamerstrasse  is  bordered  on  both  sides  by  side 
walks  which  are  themselves  wider  than  some  of  the 
historic  thoroughfares  of  the  old  European  capitals; 
there  seem  to  be  no  lanes  or  alleys;  there  are  no 
short  cuts;  here  and  there,  where  several  important 
streets  empty  into  a  common  center,  that  center's 
circumference  is  of  a  magnitude  calculated  to  bring 
that  word  spaciousness  into  your  mind  again.  The 
park  in  the  middle  of  the  city  is  so  huge  that  it  calls 
up  that  expression  once  more. 

The  next  feature  that  strikes  one  is  the  straightness 
of  the  streets.  The  short  ones  haven't  so  much  as 
a  waver  in  them;  the  long  ones  stretch  out  to  pro 
digious  distances  and  then  tilt  a  little  to  the  right  or 
left,  then  stretch  out  on  another  immense  reach  as 
straight  as  a  ray  of  light.  A  result  of  this  arrange 
ment  is,  that  at  night  Berlin  is  an  inspiring  sight  to 
see.  Gas  and  the  electric  light  are  employed  with 
a  wasteful  liberality,  and  so,  wherever  one  goes,  he 
has  always  double  ranks  of  brilliant  lights  stretching 
far  down  into  the  night  on  every  hand,  with  here  and 
there  a  wide  and  splendid  constellation  of  them 
spread  out  over  an  intervening  "Platz";  and  be 
tween  the  interminable  double  procession  of  street 
lamps  one  has  the  swarming  and  darting  cab  lamps, 
a  lively  and  pretty  addition  to  the  fine  spectacle,  for 
they  counterfeit  the  rush  and  confusion  and  sparkle 
of  an  invasion  of  fireflies. 

245 


MARK     TWAIN 

There  is  one  other  noticeable  feature — the  abso 
lutely  level  surface  of  the  site  of  Berlin.  Berlin — to 
recapitulate — is  newer  to  the  eye  than  is  any  other 
city,  and  also  blonder  of  complexion  and  tidier;  no 
other  city  has  such  an  air  of  roominess,  freedom 
from  crowding;  no  other  city  has  so  many  straight 
streets;  and  with  Chicago  it  contests  the  chromo  for 
flatness  of  surface  and  for  phenomenal  swiftness  of 
growth.  Berlin  is  the  European  Chicago.  The  two 
cities  have  about  the  same  population — say  a  million 
and  a  half.  I  cannot  speak  in  exact  terms,  because 
I  only  know  what  Chicago's  population  was  week 
before  last;  but  at  that  time  it  was  about  a  million 
and  a  half.  Fifteen  years  ago  Berlin  and  Chicago 
were  large  cities,  of  course,  but  neither  of  them  was 
the  giant  it  now  is. 

But  now  the  parallels  fail.  Only  parts  of  Chicago 
are  stately  and  beautiful,  whereas  all  of  Berlin  is 
stately  and  substantial,  and  it  is  not  merely  in  parts 
but  uniformly  beautiful.  There  are  buildings  in 
Chicago  that  are  architecturally  finer  than  any  in 
Berlin,  I  think,  but  what  I  have  just  said  above  is 
still  true.  These  two  flat  cities  would  lead  the 
world  for  phenomenal  good  health  if  London  were 
out  of  the  way.  As  it  is,  London  leads  by  a  point 
or  two.  Berlin's  death  rate  is  only  nineteen  in  the 
thousand.  Fourteen  years  ago  the  rate  was  a  third 
higher. 

Berlin  is  a  surprise  in  a  great  many  ways — in  a 
multitude  of  ways,  to  speak  strongly  and  be  exact. 
It  seems  to  be  the  most  governed  city  in  the  world, 
but  one  must  admit  that  it  also  seems  to  be  the  best 

246 


THE    GERMAN    CHICAGO 

governed.  Method  and  system  are  observable  on 
every  hand — in  great  things,  in  little  things,  in  all 
details,  of  whatsoever  size.  And  it  is  not  method 
and  system  on  paper,  and  there  an  end — it  is  method 
and  system  in  practice.  It  has  a  rule  for  every 
thing,  and  puts  the  rule  in  force;  puts  it  in  force 
against  the  poor  and  powerful  alike,  without  favor 
or  prejudice.  It  deals  with  great  matters  and  minute 
particulars  with  equal  faithfulness,  and  with  a  plod 
ding  and  painstaking  diligence  and  persistency  which 
compel  admiration — and  sometimes  regret.  There 
are  several  taxes,  and  they  are  collected  quarterly. 
Collected  is  the  word;  they  are  not  merely  levied, 
they  are  collected — every  time.  This  makes  light 
taxes.  It  is  in  cities  and  countries  where  a  consider 
able  part  of  the  community  shirk  payment  that  taxes 
have  to  be  lifted  to  a  burdensome  rate.  Here  the 
police  keep  coming,  calmly  and  patiently,  until  you 
pay  your  tax.  They  charge  you  five  or  ten  cents 
per  visit  after  the  first  call.  By  experiment  you  will 
find  that  they  will  presently  collect  that  money. 

In  one  respect  the  million  and  a  half  of  Berlin 's 
population  are  like  a  family:  the  head  of  this  large 
family  knows  the  names  of  its  several  members,  and 
where  the  said  members  are  located,  and  when  and 
where  they  were  born,  and  what  they  do  for  a  living, 
and  what  their  religious  brand  is.  Whoever  comes 
to  Berlin  must  furnish  these  particulars  to  the  police 
immediately;  moreover,  if  he  knows  how  long  he  is 
going  to  stay,  he  must  say  so.  If  he  take  a  house 
he  will  be  taxed  on  the  rent  and  taxed  also  on  his 
income.  He  will  not  be  asked  what  his  income  is, 
17  247 


MARK    TWAIN 

and  so  he  may  save  some  lies  for  home  consumption. 
The  police  will  estimate  his  income  from  the  house- 
rent  he  pays,  and  tax  him  on  that  basis. ' 

Duties  on  imported  articles  are  collected  with 
inflexible  fidelity,  be  the  sum  large  or  little;  but  the 
methods  are  gentle,  prompt,  and  full  of  the  spirit  of 
accommodation.  The  postman  attends  to  the  whole 
matter  for  you,  in  cases  where  the  article  comes  by 
mail,  and  you  have  no  trouble  and  suffer  no  incon 
venience.  The  other  day  a  friend  of  mine  was  in 
formed  that  there  was  a  package  in  the  post-office 
for  him,  containing  a  lady's  silk  belt  with  gold  clasp, 
and  a  gold  chain  to  hang  a  bunch  of  keys  on.  In  his 
first  agitation  he  was  going  to  try  to  bribe  the  post 
man  to  chalk  it  through,  but  acted  upon  his  sober 
second  thought  and  allowed  the  matter  to  take  its 
proper  and  regular  course.  In  a  little  while  the 
postman  brought  the  package  and  made  these  several 
collections:  duty  on  the  silk  belt,  7>£  cents;  duty  on 
the  gold  chain,  10  cents;  charge  for  fetching  the  pack 
age,  5  cents.  These  devastating  imposts  are  exacted 
for  the  protection  of  German  home  industries. 

The  calm,  quiet,  courteous,  cussed  persistence  of 
the  police  is  the  most  admirable  thing  I  have  en 
countered  on  this  side.  They  undertook  to  persuade 
me  to  send  and  get  a  passport  for  a  Swiss  maid  whom 
we  had  brought  with  us,  and  at  the  end  of  six  weeks 
of  patient,  tranquil,  angelic  daily  effort  they  suc 
ceeded.  I  was  not  intending  to  give  them  trouble, 
but  I  was  lazy  and  I  thought  they  would  get  tired. 
Meanwhile  they  probably  thought  I  would  be  the 
one.  It  turned  out  just  so. 

248 


THE    GERMAN    CHICAGO 

One  is  not  allowed  to  build  unstable,  unsafe,  or 
unsightly  houses  in  Berlin;  the  result  is  this  comely 
and  conspicuously  stately  city,  with  its  security 
from  conflagrations  and  breakdowns.  It  is  built  of 
architectural  Gibraltars.  The  building  commission 
ers  inspect  while  the  building  is  going  up.  It  has 
been  found  that  this  is  better  than  to  wait  till  it  falls 
down.  These  people  are  full  of  whims. 

One  is  not  allowed  to  cram  poor  folk  into  cramped 
and  dirty  tenement  houses.  Each  individual  must 
have  just  so  many  cubic  feet  of  room-space,  and 
sanitary  inspections  are  systematic  and  frequent. 

Everything  is  orderly.  The  fire  brigade  march 
in  rank,  curiously  uniformed,  and  so  grave  is  their 
demeanor  that  they  look  like  a  Salvation  Army 
under  conviction  of  sin.  People  tell  me  that  when 
a  fire  alarm  is  sounded,  the  firemen  assemble  calmly, 
answer  to  their  names  when  the  roll  is  called,  then 
proceed  to  the  fire.  There  they  are  ranked  up, 
military  fashion,  and  told  off  in  detachments  by  the 
chief,  who  parcels  out  to  the  detachments  the  several 
parts  of  the  work  which  they  are  to  undertake  in 
putting  out  that  fire.  This  is  all  done  with  low- 
voiced  propriety,  and  strangers  think  these  people' 
are  working  a  funeral.  As  a  rule,  the  fire  is  confined 
to  a  single  floor  in  these  great  masses  of  bricks  and 
masonry,  and  consequently  there  is  little  or  no 
interest  attaching  to  a  fire  here  for  the  rest  of  the 
occupants  of  the  house. 

There  is  abundance  of  newspapers  in  Berlin,  and 
there  was  also  a  newsboy,  but  he  died.     At  intervals 
of  half  a  mile  on  the  thoroughfares  there  are  booths, 
17  249 


MARK    TWAIN 

and  it  is  at  these  that  you  buy  your  papers.  There 
are  plenty  of  theaters,  but  they  do  not  advertise  in 
a  loud  way.  There  are  no  big  posters  of  any  kind, 
and  the  display  of  vast  type  and  of  pictures  of 
actors  and  performance  framed  on  a  big  scale  and 
done  in  rainbow  colors  is  a  thing  unknown.  If  the 
big  show-bills  existed  there  would  be  no  place  to 
exhibit  them ;  for  there  are  no  poster-fences,  and  one 
would  not  be  allowed  to  disfigure  dead  walls  with 
them.  Unsightly  things  are  forbidden  here;  Berlin 
is  a  rest  to  the  eye. 

And  yet  the  saunterer  can  easily  find  out  what  is 
going  on  at  the  theaters.  All  over  the  city,  at  short 
distances  apart,  there  are  neat  round  pillars  eighteen 
feet  high  and  about  as  thick  as  a  hogshead,  and  on 
these  the  little  black  and  white  theater  bills  and 
other  notices  are  posted.  One  generally  finds  a 
group  around  each  pillar  reading  these  things. 
There  are  plenty  of  things  in  Berlin  worth  importing 
to  America.  It  is  these  that  I  have  particularly 
wished  to  make  a  note  of.  When  Buffalo  Bill  was 
here  his  biggest  poster  was  probably  not  larger  than 
the  top  of  an  ordinary  trunk. 

There  is  a  multiplicity  of  clean  and  comfortable 
horse-cars,  but  whenever  you  think  you  know  where 
a  car  is  going  to  you  would  better  stop  ashore,  because 
that  car  is  not  going  to  that  place  at  all.  The  car 
routes  are  marvelously  intricate,  and  often  the  drivers 
get  lost  and  are  not  heard  of  for  years.  The  signs 
on  the  cars  furnish  no  details  as  to  the  course  of  the 
journey;  they  name  the  end  of  it,  and  then  experi 
ment  around  to  see  how  much  territory  they  can 

250 


THE    GERMAN    CHICAGO 

cover  before  they  get  there.  The  conductor  will 
collect  your  fare  over  again  every  few  miles,  and  give 
you  a  ticket  which  he  hasn't  apparently  kept  any 
record  of,  and  you  keep  it  till  an  inspector  comes 
aboard  by  and  by  and  tears  a  corner  off  it  (wiiich  he 
does  not  keep),  then  you  throw  the  ticket  away  and 
get  ready  to  buy  another.  Brains  are  of  no  value 
when  you  are  trying  to  navigate  Berlin  in  a  horse- 
car.  When  the  ablest  of  Brooklyn's  editors  was 
here  on  a  visit  he  took  a  horse-car  in  the  early  morn 
ing,  and  wore  it  out  trying  to  go  to  a  point  in  the 
center  of  the  city.  He  was  on  board  all  day  and 
spent  many  dollars  in  fares,  and  then  did  not  arrive 
at  the  place  which  he  had  started  to  go  to.  This 
is  the  most  thorough  way  to  see  Berlin,  but  it  is 
also  the  most  expensive. 

But  there  are  excellent  features  about  the  car 
system,  nevertheless.  The  car  will  not  stop  for  you 
to  get  on  or  off,  except  at  certain  places  a  block  or 
two  apart  where  there  is  a  sign  to  indicate  that  that 
is  a  halting-station.  This  system  saves  many  bones. 
There  are  twenty  places  inside  the  car;  when  these 
seats  are  filled,  no  more  can  enter.  Four  or  five 
persons  may  stand  on  each  platform — the  law  de 
crees  the  number — and  when  these  standing-places 
are  all  occupied  the  next  applicant  is  refused.  As 
there  is  no  crowding,  and  as  no  rowdyism  is  allowed, 
women  stand  on  the  platforms  as  well  as  the  men; 
they  often  stand  there  when  there  are  vacant  seats 
inside,  for  these  places  are  comfortable,  there  being 
little  or  no  jolting.  A  native  tells  me  that  when  the 
first  car  was  put  on,  thirty  or  forty  years  ago,  the 

251 


MARK    TWAIN 

public  had  such  a  terror  of  it  that  they  didn't  feel 
safe  inside  of  it,  or  outside  either.  They  made  the 
company  keep  a  man  at  every  crossing  with  a  red 
flag  in  his  hand.  Nobody  would  travel  in  the  car 
except  convicts  on  the  way  to  the  gallows.  This 
made  business  in  only  one  direction,  and  the  car  had 
to  go  back  light.  To  save  the  company,  the  city 
government  transferred  the  convict  cemetery  to  the 
other  end  of  the  line.  This  made  traffic  in  both 
directions  and  kept  the  company  from  going  under. 
This  sounds  like  some  of  the  information  which 
traveling  foreigners  are  furnished  with  in  America. 
To  my  mind  it  has  a  doubtful  ring  about  it. 

The  first-class  cab  is  neat  and  trim,  and  has 
leather-cushion  seats  and  a  swift  horse.  The  second- 
class  cab  is  an  ugly  and  lubberly  vehicle,  and  is 
always  old.  It  seems  a  strange  thing  that  they  have 
never  built  any  new  ones.  Still,  if  such  a  thing  were 
done  everybody  that  had  time  to  flock  would  flock 
to  see  it,  and  that  would  make  a  crowd,  and  the 
police  do  not  like  crowds  and  disorder  here.  If 
there  were  an  earthquake  in  Berlin  the  police  would 
take  charge  of  it  and  conduct  it  in  that  sort  of  orderly 
way  that  would  make  you  think  it  was  a  prayer- 
meeting.  That  is  what  an  earthquake  generally 
ends  in,  but  this  one  would  be  different  from  those 
others;  it  would  be  kind  of  soft  and  self-contained, 
like  a  republican  praying  for  a  mugwump. 

For  a  course  (a  quarter  of  an  hour  or  less),  one 
pays  twenty-five  cents  in  a  first-class  cab,  and  fifteen 
cents  in  a  second-class.  The  first-class  will  take  you 
along  faster,  for  the  second-class  horse  is  old — 

252 


THE    GERMAN    CHICAGO 

always  old — as  old  as  his  cab,  some  authorities  say 
— and  ill-fed  and  weak.  He  has  been  a  first-class 
once,  but  has  been  degraded  to  second  class  for  long 
and  faithful  service. 

Still,  he  must  take  you  as  far  for  fifteen  cents  as 
the  other  horse  takes  you  for  twenty-five.  If  he 
can't  do  his  fifteen-minute  distance  in  fifteen  minutes, 
he  must  still  do  the  distance  for  the  fifteen  cents. 
Any  stranger  can  check  the  distance  off — by  means 
of  the  most  curious  map  I  am  acquainted  with.  It 
is  issued  by  the  city  government  and  can  be  bought 
in  any  shop  for  a  trifle.  In  it  every  street  is  sectioned 
off  like  a  string  of  long  beads  of  different  colors. 
Each  long  bead  represents  a  minute's  travel,  and 
when  you  have  covered  fifteen  of  the  beads  you  have 
got  your  money's  worth.  This  map  of  Berlin  is  a 
gay-colored  maze,  and  looks  like  pictures  of  the 
circulation  of  the  blood. 

The  streets  are  very  clean.  They  are  kept  so — 
not  by  prayer  and  talk  and  the  other  New  York 
methods,  but  by  daily  and  hourly  work  with  scrapers 
and  brooms;  and  when  an  asphalted  street  has  been 
tidily  scraped  after  a  rain  or  a  light  snowfall,  they 
scatter  clean  sand  over  it.  This  saves  some  of  the 
horses  from  falling  down.  In  fact,  this  is  a  city 
government  which  seems  to  stop  at  no  expense  where 
the  public  convenience,  comfort,  and  health  are  con 
cerned—except  in  one  detail.  That  is  the  naming 
of  the  streets  and  the  numbering  of  the  houses. 
Sometimes  the  name  of  a  street  will  change  in  the 
middle  of  a  block.  You  will  not  find  it  out  till  you 
get  to  the  next  corner  and  discover  the  new  name  on 

253 


MARK     TWAIN 

the  wall,  and  of  course  you  don't  know  just  when 
the  change  happened. 

The  names  are  plainly  marked  on  the  corners — on 
all  the  corners — there  are  no  exceptions.  But  the 
numbering  of  the  houses — there  has  never  been  any 
thing  like  it  since  original  chaos.  It  is  not  possible 
that  it  was  done  by  this  wise  city  government.  At 
first  one  thinks  it  was  done  by  an  idiot;  but  there  is 
too  much  variety  about  it  for  that;  an  idiot  could 
not  think  of  so  many  different  ways  of  making  con 
fusion  and  propagating  blasphemy.  The  numbers 
run  up  one  side  the  street  and  down  the  other.  That 
is  endurable,  but  the  rest  isn't.  They  often  use  one 
number  for  three  or  four  houses — and  sometimes 
they  put  the  number  on  only  one  of  the  houses  and 
let  you  guess  at  the  others.  Sometimes  they  put  a 
number  on  a  house — 4,  for  instance — then  put  4a, 
46,  4<;,  on  the  succeeding  houses,  and  one  becomes 
old  and  decrepit  before  he  finally  arrives  at  5.  A 
result  of  this  systemless  system  is  that  when  you  are 
at  No.  i  in  a  street  you  haven't  any  idea  how  far 
it  may  be  to  No.  150;  it  may  be  only  six  or  eight 
blocks,  it  may  be  a  couple  of  miles.  Frederick  Street 
is  long,  and  is  one  of  the  great  thoroughfares.  The 
other  day  a  man  put  up  his  money  behind  the  asser 
tion  that  there  were  more  refreshment  places  in  that 
street  than  numbers  on  the  houses — and  he  won. 
There  were  254  numbers  and  257  refreshment  places. 
Yet  as  I  have  said,  it  is  a  long  street. 

But  the  worst  feature  of  all  this  complex  business 
is  that  in  Berlin  the  numbers  do  not  travel  in  any 
one  direction;  no,  they  travel  along  until  they  get 

254 


THE    GERMAN    CHICAGO 

to  50  or  60,  perhaps,  then  suddenly  you  find  yourself 
up  in  the  hundreds — 140,  maybe;  the  next  will  be 
139 — then  you  perceive  by  that  sign  that  the  num 
bers  are  now  traveling  toward  you  from  the  opposite 
direction.  They  will  keep  that  sort  of  insanity  up 
as  long  as  you  travel  that  street ;  every  now  and  then 
the  numbers  will  turn  and  run  the  other  way.  As  a 
rule,  there  is  an  arrow  under  the  number,  to  show  by 
the  direction  of  its  flight  which  way  the  numbers 
are  proceeding.  There  are  a  good  many  suicides  in 
Berlin;  I  have  seen  six  reported  in  a  single  day. 
There  is  always  a  deal  of  learned  and  laborious 
arguing  and  ciphering  going  on  as  to  the  cause  of  this 
state  of  things.  If  they  will  set  to  work  and  number 
their  houses  in  a  rational  way  perhaps  they  will  find 
out  what  was  the  matter. 

More  than  a  month  ago  Berlin  began  to  prepare 
to  celebrate  Professor  Virchow's  seventieth  birthday. 
When  the  birthday  arrived,  the  middle  of  October, 
it  seemed  to  me  that  all  the  world  of  science  arrived 
with  it;  deputation  after  deputation  came,  bringing 
the  homage  and  reverence  of  far  cities  and  centers 
of  learning,  and  during  the  whole  of  a  long  day  the 
hero  of  it  sat  and  received  such  witness  of  his  great 
ness  as  has  seldom  been  vouchsafed  to  any  man  in 
any  walk  of  life  in  any  time,  ancient  or  modern. 
These  demonstrations  were  continued  in  one  form 
or  another  day  after  day,  and  were  presently  merged 
in  similar  demonstrations  to  his  twin  in  science  and 
achievement,  Professor  Helmholtz,  whose  seventieth 
birthday  is  separated  from  Virchow's  by  only  about 
three  weeks;  so  nearly  as  this  did  these  two  extraor- 

255 


MARK    TWAIN 

dinary  men  come  to  being  born  together.  Two  such 
births  have  seldom  signalized  a  single  year  in  human 
history. 

But  perhaps  the  final  and  closing  demonstration 
was  peculiarly  grateful  to  them.  This  was  a  Com- 
mers  given  in  their  honor  the  other  night  by  1,000 
students.  It  was  held  in  a  huge  hall,  very  long  and 
very  lofty,  which  had  five  galleries,  far  above  every 
body's  head,  which  were  crowded  with  ladies — four 
or  five  hundred,  I  judged. 

It  was  beautifully  decorated  with  clustered  flags 
and  various  ornamental  devices,  and  was  brilliantly 
lighted.  On  the  spacious  floor  of  this  place  were 
ranged,  in  files,  innumerable  tables,  seating  twenty- 
four  persons  each,  extending  from  one  end  of  the 
great  hall  clear  to  the  other,  and  with  narrow  aisles 
between  the  files.  In  the  center  on  one  side  was  a 
high  and  tastefully  decorated  platform  twenty  or 
thirty  feet  long,  with  a  long  table  on  it  behind  which 
sat  the  half-dozen  chiefs  of  the  givers  of  the  Com- 
mers  in  the  rich  medieval  costumes  of  as  many 
different  college  corps.  Behind  these  youths  a  band 
of  musicians  was  concealed.  On  the  floor  directly 
in  front  of  this  platform  were  half  a  dozen  tables 
which  were  distinguished  from  the  outlying  conti 
nent  of  tables  by  being  covered  instead  of  left  naked. 
Of  these  the  central  table  was  reserved  for  the  two 
heroes  of  the  occasion  and  twenty  particularly  emi 
nent  professors  of  the  Berlin  University,  and  the 
other  covered  tables  were  for  the  occupancy  of  a 
hundred  less  distinguished  professors. 

I  was  glad  to  be  honored  with  a  place  at  the  table 
256 


THE    GERMAN    CHICAGO 

of  the  two  heroes  of  the  occasion,  although  I  was  not 
really  learned  enough  to  deserve  it.  Indeed,  there 
was  a  pleasant  strangeness  in  being  in  such  company ; 
to  be  thus  associated  with  twenty-three  men  who 
forget  more  every  day  than  I  ever  knew.  Yet  there 
was  nothing  embarrassing  about  it,  because  loaded 
men  and  empty  ones  look  about  alike,  and  I  knew 
that  to  that  multitude  there  I  was  a  professor.  It 
required  but  little  art  to  catch  the  ways  and  attitude 
of  those  men  and  imitate  them,  and  I  had  no  diffi 
culty  in  looking  as  much  like  a  professor  as  anybody 
there. 

We  arrived  early;  so  early  that  only  Professors 
Virchow  and  Helmholtz  and  a  dozen  guests  of  the 
special  tables  were  ahead  of  us,  and  three  hun 
dred  or  four  hundred  students.  But  people  were 
arriving  in  floods  now,  and  within  fifteen  minutes 
all  but  the  special  tables  were  occupied,  and  the 
great  house  was  crammed,  the  aisles  included.  It 
was  said  that  there  were  four  thousand  men  pres 
ent.  It  was  a  most  animated  scene,  there  is  no 
doubt  about  that;  it  was  a  stupendous  beehive. 
At  each  end  of  each  table  stood  a  corps  student 
in  the  uniform  of  his  corps.  These  quaint  costumes 
are  of  brilliant  colored  silks  and  velvets,  with  some 
times  a  high  plumed  hat,  sometimes  a  broad  Scotch 
cap,  with  a  great  plume  wound  about  it,  sometimes 
— oftenest — a  little  shallow  silk  cap  on  the  tip  of 
the  crown,  like  an  inverted  saucer;  sometimes  the 
pantaloons  are  snow-white,  sometimes  of  other  col 
ors;  the  boots  in  all  cases  come  up  well  above  the 
knee ;  and  in  all  cases  also  white  gauntlets  are  worn ; 

?57 


MARK    TWAIN 

the  sword  is  a  rapier  with  a  bowl-shaped  guard 
for  the  hand,  painted  in  several  colors.  Each  corps 
has  a  uniform  of  its  own,  and  all  are  of  rich  material, 
brilliant  in  color,  and  exceedingly  picturesque;  for 
they  are  survivals  of  the  vanished  costumes  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  and  they  reproduce  for  us  the  time 
when  men  were  beautiful  to  look  at.  The  student 
who  stood  guard  at  our  end  of  the  table  was  of 
grave  countenance  and  great  frame  and  grace  of 
form,  and  he  was  doubtless  an  accurate  reproduction, 
clothes  and  all,  of  some  ancestor  of  his  of  two  or 
three  centuries  ago — a  reproduction  as  far  as  the 
outside,  the  animal  man,  goes,  I  mean. 

As  I  say,  the  place  was  now  crowded.  The  nearest 
aisle  was  packed  with  students  standing  up,  and 
they  made  a  fence  which  shut  off  the  rest  of  the  house 
from  view.  As  far  down  this  fence  as  you  could  see 
all  these  wholesome  young  faces  were  turned  in  one 
direction,  all  these  intent  and  worshiping  eyes  were 
centered  upon  one  spot — the  place  where  Virchow 
and  Helmholtz  sat.  The  boys  seemed  lost  to  every 
thing,  unconscious  of  their  own  existence;  they  de 
voured  these  two  intellectual  giants  with  their  eyes, 
they  feasted  upon  them,  and  the  worship  that  was 
in  their  hearts  shone  in  their  faces.  It  seemed  to 
me  that  I  would  rather  be  flooded  with  a  glory  like 
that,  instinct  with  sincerity,  innocent  of  self-seeking, 
than  win  a  hundred  battles  and  break  a  million 
hearts. 

There  was  a  big  mug  of  beer  in  front  of  each  of 
us,  and  more  to  come  when  wanted.  There  was  also 
a  quarto  pamphlet  containing  the  words  of  the  songs 

258 


THE    GERMAN    CHICAGO 

to  be  sung.     After  the  names  of  the  officers  of  the 
feast  were  these  words  in  large  type: 

"Wdhrend  des  Kommerses  herrscht  allgemeiner 
Burgfriede." 

I  was  not  able  to  translate  this  to  my  satisfaction, 
but  a  professor  helped  me  out.  This  was  his  expla 
nation:  The  students  in  uniform  belong  to  different 
college  corps;  not  all  students  belong  to  corps;  none 
join  the  corps  except  those  who  enjoy  fighting.  The 
corps  students  fight  duels  with  swords  every  week, 
one  corps  challenging  another  corps  to  furnish  a  cer 
tain  number  of  duelists  for  the  occasion,  and  it  is 
only  on  this  battle-field  that  students  of  different 
corps  exchange  courtesies.  In  common  life  they  do 
not  drink  with  each  other  or  speak.  The  above  line 
now  translates  itself :  there  is  truce  during  the  Com' 
mers,  war  is  laid  aside  and  fellowship  takes  its  place. 

Now  the  performance  began.  The  concealed  band 
played  a  piece  of  martial  music;  then  there  was  a 
pause.  The  students  on  the  platform  rose  to  their 
feet,  the  middle  one  gave  a  toast  to  the  Emperor, 
then  all  the  house  rose,  mugs  in  hand.  At  the  call 
"One — two — three!"  all  glasses  were  drained  and 
then  brought  down  with  a  slam  on  the  tables  in 
unison.  The  result  was  as  good  an  imitation  of 
thunder  as  I  have  ever  heard.  From  now  on,  during 
an  hour,  there  was  singing,  in  mighty  chorus. 
During  each  interval  between  songs  a  number  of  the 
special  guests  —  the  professors  —  arrived.  There 
seemed  to  be  some  signal  whereby  the  students  on 
the  platform  were  made  aware  that  a  professor  had 

259 


MARK    TWAIN 

arrived  at  the  remote  door  of  entrance;  for  you 
would  see  them  suddenly  rise  to  their  feet,  strike  an 
erect  military  attitude,  then  draw  their  swords;  the 
swords  of  all  their  brethren  standing  guard  at  the 
innumerable  ^tables  would  flash  from  their  scabbards 
and  be  held  aloft — a  handsome  spectacle!  Three 
clear  bugle  notes  would  ring  out,  then  all  these 
swords  would  come  down  with  a  crash,  twice  re 
peated,  on  the  tables,  and  be  uplifted  and  held  aloft 
again;  then  in  the  distance  you  would  see  the  gay 
uniforms  and  uplifted  swords  of  a  guard  of  honor 
clearing  the  way  and  conducting  the  guest  down  to 
his  place.  The  songs  were  stirring,  the  immense  out 
pour  from  young  life  and  young  lungs,  the  crash  of 
swords  and  the  thunder  of  the  beer-mugs  gradually 
worked  a  body  up  to  what  seemed  the  last  possible 
summit  of  excitement.  It  surely  seemed  to  me  that 
I  had  reached  that  summit,  that  I  had  reached  my 
limit,  and  that  there  was  no  higher  lift  desirable  for 
me.  When  apparently  the  last  eminent  guest  had 
long  ago  taken  his  place,  again  those  three  bugle 
blasts  rang  out  and  once  more  the  swords  leaped 
from  their  scabbards.  Who  might  this  late  comer 
be?  Nobody  was  interested  to  inquire.  Still,  indo 
lent  Jeyes  were  turned  toward  the  distant  entrance; 
we  saw  the  silken  gleam  and  the  lifted  swords  of  a 
guard  of  honor  plowing  through  the  remote  crowds. 
Then  we  saw  that  end  of  the  house  rising  to  its  feet ; 
saw  it  rise  abreast  the  advancing  guard  all  along,  like 
a  wave.  This  supreme  honor  had  been  offered  to 
no  one  before.  Then  there  was  an  excited  whisper 
at  our  table — "MOMMSEN!"  and  the  whole  house 

260 


THE    GERMAN    CHICAGO 

rose.  Rose  and  shouted  and  stamped  and  clapped, 
and  banged  the  beer-mugs.  Just  simply  a  storm! 
Then  the  little  man  with  his  long  hair  and  Emer 
sonian  face  edged  his  way  past  us  and  took  his  seat. 
I  could  have  touched  him  with  my  hand — Mommsen ! 
—think  of  it! 

This  was  one  of  those  immense  surprises  that  can 
happen  only  a  few  times  in  one's  life.  I  was  not 
dreaming  of  him,  he  was  to  me  only  a  giant  myth,  a 
world-shadowing  specter,  not  a  reality.  The  surprise 
of  it  all  can  be  only  comparable  to  a  man's  suddenly 
coming  upon  Mont  Blanc,  with  its  awful  form 
towering  into  the  sky,  when  he  didn't  suspect  he  was 
in  its  neighborhood.  I  would  have  walked  a  great 
many  miles  to  get  a  sight  of  him,  and  here  he  was, 
without  trouble  or  tramp  or  cost  of  any  kind.  Here 
he  was,  clothed  in  a  Titanic  deceptive  modesty  which 
made  him  look  like  other  men.  Here  he  was,  carry 
ing  the  Roman  world  and  all  the  Caesars  in  his  hos 
pitable  skull,  and  doing  it  as  easily  as  that  other 
luminous  vault,  the  skull  of  the  universe,  carries  the 
Milky  Way  and  the  constellations. 

One  of  the  professors  said  that  once  upon  a  time 
an  American  young  lady  was  introduced  to  Momm 
sen,  and  found  herself  badly  scared  and  speechless. 
She  dreaded  to  see  his  mouth  unclose,  for  she  was 
expecting  him  to  choose  a  subject  several  miles  above 
her  comprehension,  and  didn't  suppose  he  could  get 
down  to  the  world  that  other  people  lived  in;  but 
when  his  remark  came,  her  terrors  disappeared: 
4 'Well,  how  do  you  do?  Have  you  read  Howells's 
last  book?  7  think  it's  his  best," 

261 


MARK    TWAIN 

The  active  ceremonies  of  the  evening  closed  with 
the  speeches  of  welcome  delivered  by  two  students 
and  the  replies  made  by  Professors  Virchow  and 
Helmholtz. 

Virchow  has  long  been  a  member  of  the  city  gov 
ernment  of  Berlin.  He  works  as  hard  for  the  city 
as  does  any  other  Berlin  alderman,  and  gets  the  same 
pay — nothing.  I  don't  know  that  we  in  America 
could  venture  to  ask  our  most  illustrious  citizen  to 
serve  in  a  board  of  aldermen,  and  if  we  might  venture 
it  I  am  not  positively  sure  that  we  could  elect  him. 
But  here  the  municipal  system  is  such  that  the  best 
men  in  the  city  consider  it  an  honor  to  serve  gratis 
as  aldermen,  and  the  people  have  the  good  sense  to 
prefer  these  men  and  to  elect  them  year  after  year. 
As  a  result  Berlin  is  a  thoroughly  well-governed  city. 
It  is  a  free  city;  its  affairs  are  not  meddled  with  by 
the  state ;  they  are  managed^  by  its  own  citizens,  and 
after  methods  of  their  own  devising. 


CONCERNING   THE   JEWS 

SOME  months  ago  I  published  a  magazine  article 
descriptive  of  a  remarkable  scene  in  the  Im 
perial  Parliament  in  Vienna.  Since  then  I  have 
received  from  Jews  in  America  several  letters  of  in 
quiry.  They  were  difficult  letters  to  answer,  for 
they  were  not  very  definite.  But  at  last  I  received  a 
definite  one.  It  is  from  a  lawyer,  and  he  really  asks 
the  questions  which  the  other  writers  probably  be 
lieved  they  were  asking.  By  help  of  this  text  I  will 
do  the  best  I  can  to  publicly  answer  this  corre 
spondent,  and  also  the  others — at  the  same  time 
apologizing  for  having  failed  to  reply  privately. 
The  lawyer's  letter  reads  as  follows: 

I  have  read  "Stirring  Times  in  Austria."  One  point  in  par 
ticular  is  of  vital  import  to  not  a  few  thousand  people,  including 
myself,  being  a  point  about  which  I  have  often  wanted  to  address 
a  question  to  some  disinterested  person.  The  show  of  military 
force  in  the  Austrian  Parliament,  which  precipitated  the  riots, 
was  not  introduced  by  any  Jew.  No  Jew  was  a  member  of  that 
body.  No  Jewish  question  was  involved  in  the  Ausgleich  or  in 
the  language  proposition.  No  Jew  was  insulting  anybody.  In 
short,  no  Jew  was  doing  any  mischief  toward  anybody  whatso 
ever.  In  fact,  the  Jews  were  the  only  ones  of  the  nineteen  differ 
ent  races  in  Austria  which  did  not  have  a  party — they  are 
absolutely  non-participants.  Yet  in  your  article  you  say  that 
in  the  rioting  which  followed,  all  classes  of  people  were  unani- 
18  263 


MARK    TWAIN 

mous  only  on  one  thing — viz.,  in  being  against  the  Jews.  Now  will 
you  kindly  tell  me  why,  in  your  judgment,  the  Jews  have  thus 
ever  been,  and  are  even  now,  in  these  days  of  supposed  intelli 
gence,  the  butt  of  baseless,  vicious  animosities?  I  dare  say  that 
for  centuries  there  has  been  no  more  quiet,  undisturbing,  and 
well-behaving  citizens,  as  a  class,  than  that  same  Jew.  It  seems 
to  me  that  ignorance  and  fanaticism  cannot  alone  account  for 
these  horrible  and  unjust  persecutions. 

Tell  me,  therefore,  from  your  vantage-point  of  cold  view, 
what  in  your  mind  is  the  cause.  Can  American  Jews  do  any 
thing  to  correct  it  either  in  America  or  abroad?  Will  it  ever  come 
to  an  end?  Will  a  Jew  be  permitted  to  live  honestly,  decently, 
and  peaceably  like  the  rest  of  mankind?  What  has  become  of 
the  golden  rule? 

I  will  begin  by  saying  that  if  I  thought  myself 
prejudiced  against  the  Jew,  I  should  hold  it  fairest 
to  leave  this  subject  to  a  person  not  crippled  in  that 
way.  But  I  think  I  have  no  such  prejudice.  A  few 
years  ago  a  Jew  observed  to  me  that  there  was  no 
uncourteous  reference  to  his  people  in  my  books,  and 
asked  how  it  happened.  It  happened  because  the 
disposition  was  lacking.  I  am  quite  sure  that  (bar 
one)  I  have  no  race  prejudices,  and  I  think  I  have 
no  color  prejudices  nor  caste  prejudices  nor  creed 
prejudices.  Indeed,  I  know  it.  I  can  stand  any 
society.  All  that  I  care  to  know  is  that  a  man  is  a 
human  being — that  is  enough  for  me;  he  can't  be 
any  worse.  I  have  no  special  regard  for  Satan;  but 
I  can  at  least  claim  that  I  have  no  prejudice  against 
him.  It  may  even  be  that  I  lean  a  little  his  way,  on 
account  of  his  not  having  a  fair  show.  All  religions 
issue  bibles  against  him,  and  say  the  most  injurious 
things  about  him,  but  we  never  hear  his  side.  We 
have  none  but  the  evidence  for  the  prosecution,  and 

264 


CONCERNING    THE    JEWS 

yet  we  have  rendered  the  verdict.  To  my  mind, 
this  is  irregular.  It  is  un-English ;  it  is  un-American ; 
it  is  French.  Without  this  precedent  Dreyfus  could 
not  have  been  condemned.  Of  course  Satan  has 
some  kind  of  a  case,  it  goes  without  saying.  It  may 
be  a  poor  one,  but  that  is  nothing;  that  can  be  said 
about  any  of  us.  As  soon  as  I  can  get  at  the  facts 
I  will  undertake  his  rehabilitation  myself,  if  I  can 
find  an  unpolitic  publisher.  It  is  a  thing  which  we 
ought  to  be  willing  to  do  for  any  one  who  is  under 
a  cloud.  We  may  not  pay  him  reverence,  for  that 
would  be  indiscreet,  but  we  can  at  least  respect  his 
talents.  A  person  who  has  for  untold  centuries 
maintained  the  imposing  position  of  spiritual  head 
of  four-fifths  of  the  human  race,  and  political  head 
of  the  whole  of  it,  must  be  granted  the  possession  of 
executive  abilities  of  the  loftiest  order.  In  his  large- 
presence  the  other  popes  and  politicians  shrink  to 
midges  for  the  microscope.  I  would  like  to  see  him. 
I  would  rather  see  him  and  shake  him  by  the  tail 
than  any  other  member  of  the  European  Concert^ 
In  the  present  paper  I  shall  allow  myself  to  use  the 
word  Jew  as  if  it  stood  for  both  religion  and  race. 
It  is  handy ;  and,  besides,  that  is  what  the  term  means 
to  the  general  world. 

In  the  above  letter  one  notes  these  points : 

1.  The  Jew  is  a  well-behaved  citizen. 

2 .  Can  ignorance  and  fanaticism  alone  account  for 
his  unjust  treatment  ? 

3 .  Can  Jews  do  anything  to  improve  the  situation  ? 

4.  The  Jews  have  no  part}*;   they  are  non-par 
ticipants. 

is  265 


MARK    TWAIN 

5.  Will  the  persecution  ever  come  to  an  end? 

6.  What  has  become  of  the  golden  rule? 

Point  No.  i. — We  must  grant  proposition  No.  i, 
for  several  sufficient  reasons.  The  Jew  is  not  a 
disturber  of  the  peace  of  any  country.  Even  his 
enemies  will  concede  that.  He  is  not  a  loafer,  he 
is  not  a  sot,  he  is  not  noisy,  he  is  not  a  brawler  nor 
a  rioter,  he  is  not  quarrelsome.  In  the  statistics 
of  crime  his  presence  is  conspicuously  rare — in  all 
countries.  With  murder  and  other  crimes  of  violence 
he  has  but  little  to  do:  he  is  a  stranger  to  the  hang 
man.  In  the  police  court's  daily  long  roll  of  "as 
saults"  and  "drunk  and  disorderlies"  his  name 
seldom  appears.  That  the  Jewish  home  is  a  home 
in  the  truest  sense  is  a  fact  which  no  one  will  dispute. 
The  family  is  knitted  together  by  the  strongest 
affections;  its  members  show  each  other  every  due 
respect;  and  reverence  for  the  elders  is  an  inviolate 
law  of  the  house.  The  Jew  is  not  a  burden  on  the 
charities  of  the  state  nor  of  the  city;  these  could 
cease  from  their  functions  without  affecting  him. 
When  he  is  well  enough,  he  works;  when  he  is  in 
capacitated,  his  own  people  take  care  of  him.  And 
not  in  a  poor  and  stingy  way,  but  with  a  fine  and 
large  benevolence.  His  race  is  entitled  to  be  called 
the  most  benevolent  of  all  the  races  of  men.  A 
Jewish  beggar  is  not  impossible,  perhaps;  such  a 
thing  may  exist,  but  there  are  few  men  that  can  say 
they  have  seen  that  spectacle.  The  Jew  has  been 
staged  in  many  uncomplimentary  forms,  but,  so  far  as 
I  know,  no  dramatist  has  done  him  the  injustice  to 
stage  him  as  a  beggar.  Whenever  a  Jew  has  real 

266 


CONCERNING    THE    JEWS 

need  to  beg,  his  people  save  him  from  the  necessity 
of  doing  it.  The  charitable  institutions  of  the  Jews 
are  supported  by  Jewish  money,  and  amply.  The 
Jews  make  no  noise  about  it ;  it  is  done  quietly ;  they 
do  not  nag  and  pester  and  harass  us  for  contribu 
tions;  they  give  us  peace,  and  set  us  an  example — 
an  example  which  we  have  not  found  ourselves  able 
to  follow;  for  by  nature  we  are  not  free  givers,  and 
have  to  be  patiently  and  persistently  hunted  down 
in  the  interest  of  the  unfortunate. 

These  facts  are  all  on  the  credit  side  of  the  propo 
sition  that  the  Jew  is  a  good  and  orderly  citizen. 
Summed  up,  they  certify  that  he  is  quiet,  peaceable, 
industrious,  unaddicted  to  high  crimes  and  brutal 
dispositions;  that  his  family  life  is  commendable; 
that  he  is  not  a  burden  upon  public  charities;  that 
he  is  not  a  beggar;  that  in  benevolence  he  is  above 
the  reach  of  competition.  These  are  the  very 
quintessential  of  good  citizenship.  If  you  can  add 
that  he  is  as  honest  as  the  average  of  his  neigh 
bors—  But  I  think  that  question  is  affirmatively 
answered  by  the  fact  that  he  is  a  successful  business 
man.  The  basis  of  successful  business  is  honesty; 
a  business  cannot  thrive  where  the  parties  to  it 
cannot  trust  each  other.  In  the  matter  of  numbers 
the  Jew  counts  for  little  in  the  overwhelming  popu 
lation  of  New  York ;  but  that  his  honesty  counts  for 
much  is  guaranteed  by  the  fact  that  the  immense 
wholesale  business  of  Broadway,  from  the  Battery 
to  Union  Square,  is  substantially  in  his  hands. 

I  suppose  that  the  most  picturesque  example  in 
history  of  a  trader's  trust  in  his  fellow- trader  was 

267 


MARK    TWAIN 

one  where  it  was  not  Christian  trusting  Christian,  but 
Christian  trusting  Jew.  That  Hessian  Duke  who 
used  to  sell  his  subjects  to  George  III.  to  fight 
George  Washington  with  got  rich  at  it ;  and  by  and 
by,  when  the  wars  engendered  by  the  French  Revo 
lution  made  his  throne  too  warm  for  him,  he  was 
obliged  to  fly  the  country.  He  was  in  a  hurry,  and 
had  to  leave  his  earnings  behind — nine  million  dol 
lars.  He  had  to  risk  the  money  with  some  one  with 
out  security.  He  did  not  select  a  Christian,  but  a 
Jew — a  Jew  of  only  modest  means,  but  of  high 
character;  a  character  so  high  that  it  left  him  lone 
some — Rothschild  of  Frankfort.  Thirty  years  later, 
when  Europe  had  become  quiet  and  safe  again,  the 
Duke  came  back  from  overseas,  and  the  Jew  re 
turned  the  loan,  with  interest  added.1 

1Here  is  another  piece  of  picturesque  history;  and  it  reminds  us 
that  shabbiness  and  dishonesty  are  not  the  monopoly  of  any  race  or 
creed,  but  are  merely  human: 

"Congress  passed  a  bill  to  pay  $379.56  to  Moses  Pendergrass,  of 
Libertyville,  Missouri.  The  story  of  the  reason  of  this  liberality  is 
pathetically  interesting,  and  shows  the  sort  of  pickle  that  an  honest 
man  may  get  into  who  undertakes  to  do  an  honest  job  of  work  for 
Uncle  Sam.  In  1886  Moses  Pendergrass  put  in  a  bid  for  the  con 
tract  to  carry  the  mail  on  the  route  from  Knob  Lick  to  Libertyville 
and  Coffman,  thirty  miles  a  day,  from  July  I,  1887,  for  one  year. 
He  got  the  postmaster  at  Knob  Lick  to  write  the  letter  for  him,  and 
while  Moses  intended  that  his  bid  should  be  $400,  his  scribe  care 
lessly  made  it  $4.  Moses  got  the  contract,  and  did  not  find  out 
about  the  mistake  until  the  end  of  the  first  quarter,  when  he  got 
his  first  pay.  When  he  found  at  what  rate  he  was  working  he  was 
sorely  cast  down,  and  opened  communication  with  the  Post  Office 
Department.  The  department  informed  him  that  he  must  either 
carry  out  his  contract  or  throw  it  up,  and  that  if  he  threw  it  up 
his  bondsmen  would  have  to  pay  the  government  $1,459.85  damages. 
So  Moses  carried  out  his  contract,  walked  thirty  miles  every  week- 
ciay  for  a  year,  and  carried  the  mail,  and  received  for  his  labor  $4-- 


CONCERNING    THE    JEWS 

The  Jew  has  his  other  side.  He  has  some  dis 
creditable  ways,  though  he  has  not  a  monopoly  of 
them,  because  he  cannot  get  entirely  rid  of  vexatious 
Christian  competition.  We  have  seen  that  he  sel 
dom  trangresses  the  laws  against  crimes  of  violence. 
Indeed,  his  dealings  with  courts  are  almost  restricted 
to  matters  connected  with  commerce.  He  has  a 
reputation  for  various  small  forms  of  cheating,  and 
for  practising  oppressive  usury,  and  for  burning  him 
self  out  to  get  the  insurance,  and  arranging  for 
cunning  contracts  which  leave  him  an  exit  but  lock 
the  other  man  in,  and  for  smart  evasions  which  find 
him  safe  and  comfortable  just  within  the  strict  letter 
of  the  law,  when  court  and  jury  know  very  well  that 
he  has  violated  the  spirit  of  it.  He  is  a  frequent  and 
faithful  and  capable  officer  in  the  civil  service,  but  he 
is  charged  with  an  unpatriotic  disinclination  to  stand 
by  the  flag  as  a  soldier — like  the  Christian  Quaker. 

Now  if  you  offset  these  discreditable  features  by 

or,  to  be  accurate,  $6.84;  for,  the  route  being  extended  after  his  bid 
was  accepted,  the  pay  was  proportionately  increased.  Now,  after 
ten  years,  a  bill  was  finally  passed  to  pay  to  Moses  the  difference 
between  what  he  earned  in  that  unlucky  year  and  what  he  received." 

The  Sun,  which  tells  the  above  story,  says  that  bills  were  intro 
duced  in  three  or  four  Congresses  for  Moses'  relief,  and  that  com 
mittees  repeatedly  investigated  his  claim. 

It  took  six  Congresses,  containing  in  their  persons  the  compressed 
virtues  of  70,000,000  of  people,  and  cautiously  and  carefully  giving 
expression  to  those  virtues  in  the  fear  of  God  and  the  next  election, 
eleven  years  to  find  out  some  way  to  cheat  a  fellow-Christian  out 
of  about  $13  on  his  honestly  executed  contract,  and  out  of  nearly 
$300  due  him  on  its  enlarged  terms.  And  they  succeeded.  During 
the  same  time  they  paid  out  $1,000,000,000  in  pensions — a  third  of 
it  unearned  and  undeserved.  This  indicates  a  splendid  all-around 
competency  in  theft,  for  it  starts  with  farthings,  and  works  its 
industries  all  the  way  up  to  ship-loads.  It  may  be  possible  that  the 
Jews  can  beat  this,  but  the  man  that  bets  on  it  is  taking  chances. 

269 


MARK    TWAIN 

the  creditable  ones  summarized  in  a  preceding  para 
graph  beginning  with  the  words,  "These  facts  are  all 
on  the  credit  side,"  and  strike  a  balance,  what  must 
the  verdict  be  ?  This,  I  think :  that,  the  merits  and 
demerits  being  fairly  weighed  and  measured  on  both 
sides,  the  Christian  can  claim  no  superiority  over  the 
Jew  in  the  -matter  of  good  citizenship. 

Yet,  in  all  countries,  from  the  dawn  of  history, 
the  Jew  has  been  persistently  and  implacably  hated, 
and  with  frequency  persecuted. 

Point  No.  2 — "Can  fanaticism  alone  account  for 
this?" 

Years  ago  I  used  to  think  that  it  was  responsible 
for  nearly  all  of  it,  but  latterly  I  have  come  to  think 
that  this  was  an  error.  Indeed,  it  is  now  my  con 
viction  that  it  is  responsible  for  hardly  any  of  it. 
In  this  connection  I  call  to  mind  Genesis,  chapter 
xlvii. 

We  have  all  thoughtfully — or  unthoughtfully— 
read  the  pathetic  story  of  the  years  of  plenty  and 
the  years  of  famine  in  Egypt,  and  how  Joseph,  with 
that  opportunity,  made  a  corner  in  broken  hearts, 
and  the  crusts  of  the  poor,  and  human  liberty — a 
corner  whereby  he  took  a  nation's  money  all  awr,y, 
to  the  last  penny;  took  a  nation's  land  away,  to 
the  last  acre;  then  took  the  nation  itself,  buying 
it  for  bread,  man  by  man,  woman  by  woman,  child 
by  child,  till  all  were  slaves;  a  corner  which  took 
everything,  left  nothing;  a  corner  so  stupendous 
that,  by  comparison  with  it,  the  most  gigantic 
corners  in  subsequent  history  are  but  baby  things, 
for  it  dealt  in  hundreds  of  millions  of  bushels,  and 

270 


CONCERNING    THE    JEWS 

its  profits  were  reckonable  by  hundreds  of  millions 
of  dollars,  and  it  was  a  disaster  so  crushing  that  its 
effects  have  not  wholly  disappeared  from  Egypt  to 
day,  more  than  three  thousand  years  after  the  event. 

Is  it  presumable  that  the  eye  of  Egypt  was  upon 
Joseph,  the  foreign  Jew,  all  this  time?  I  think  it 
likely.  Was  it  friendly?  We  must  doubt  it.  Was 
Joseph  establishing  a  character  for  his  race  which 
would  survive  long  in  Egypt?  And  in  time  would 
his  name  come  to  be  familiarly  used  to  express 
that  character — like  Shylock's?  It  is  hardly  to  be 
doubted.  Let  us  remember  that  this  was  centuries 
before  the  crucifixion. 

I  wish  to  come  down  eighteen  hundred  years  later 
and  refer  to  a  remark  made  by  one  of  the  Latin 
historians.  I  read  it  in  a  translation  many  years 
ago,  and  it  comes  back  to  me  now  with  force.  It 
was  alluding  to  a  time  when  people  wrere  still  living 
who  could  have  seen  the  Saviour  in  the  flesh. 
Christianity  was  so  new  that  the  people  of  Rome 
had  hardly  heard  of  it,  and  had  but  confused  notions 
of  what  it  was.  The  substance  of  the  remark  was 
this:  Some  Christians  were  persecuted  in  Rome 
through  error,  they  being  " 'mistaken  for  Jews." 

The  meaning  seems  plain.  These  pagans  had 
nothing  against  Christians,  but  they  were  quite 
ready  to  persecute  Jews.  For  some  reason  or  other 
they  hated  a  Jew  before  they  even  knew  what  a 
Christian  was.  May  I  not  assume,  then,  that  the 
persecution  of  Jews  is  a  thing  which  antedates 
Christianity  and  was  not  born  of  Christianity?  I 
think  so.  What  was  the  origin  of  the  feeling? 

271 


MARK    TWAIN 

When  I  was  a  boy,  in  the  back  settlements  of  the 
Mississippi  Valley,  where  a  gracious  and  beautiful 
Sunday-school  simplicity  and  unpracticality  pre 
vailed,  the  "Yankee"  (citizen  of  the  New  England 
states)  was  hated  with  a  splendid  energy.  But  re 
ligion  had  nothing  to  do  with  it.  In  a  trade,  the 
Yankee  was  held  to  be  about  five  times  the  match 
of  the  Westerner.  His  shrewdness,  his  insight,  his 
judgment,  his  knowledge,  his  enterprise,  and  his 
formidable  cleverness  in  applying  these  forces  were 
frankly  confessed,  and  most  competently  cursed. 

In  the  cotton  states,  after  the  war,  the  simple  and 
ignorant  negroes  made  the  crops  for  the  white 
planter  on  shares.  The  Jew  came  down  in  force,  set 
up  shop  on  the  plantation,  supplied  all  the  negro's 
wants  on  credit,  and  at  the  end  of  the  season  was 
proprietor  of  the  negro's  share  of  the  present  crop 
and  of  part  of  his  share  of  the  next  one.  Before 
long,  the  whites  detested  the  Jew,  and  it  is  doubtful 
if  the  negro  loved  him. 

The  Jew  is  being  legislated  out  of  Russia.  The 
reason  is  not  concealed.  The  movement  was  in 
stituted  because  the  Christian  peasant  and  villager 
stood  no  chance  against  his  commercial  abilities.  He 
was  always  ready  to  lend  money  on  a  crop,  and  sell 
vodka  and  other  necessaries  of  life  on  credit  while 
the  crop  was  growing.  When  settlement  day  came 
he  owned  the  crop;  and  next  year  or  year  after  he 
owned  the  farm,  like  Joseph. 

In  the  dull  and  ignorant  England  of  John's  time 
everybody  got  into  debt  to  the  Jew.  He  gathered 
all  lucrative  enterprises  into  his  hands;  he  was  the 

272 


CONCERNING    THE    JEWS 

king  of  commerce;  he  was  ready  to  be  helpful  in  all 
profitable  ways;  he  even  financed  crusades  for  the 
rescue  of  the  Sepulcher.  To  wipe  out  his  account 
with  the  nation  and  restore  business  to  its  natural 
and  incompetent  channels  he  had  to  be  banished  the 
realm. 

For  the  like  reasons  Spain  had  to  banish  him 
four  hundred  years  ago,  and  Austria  about  a  couple 
of  centuries  later. 

In  all  the  ages  Christian  Europe  has  been  obliged 
to  curtail  his  activities.  If  he  entered  upon  a 
mechanical  trade,  the  Christian  had  to  retire  from  it. 
If  he  set  up  as  a  doctor,  he  was  the  best  one,  and 
he  took  the  business.  If  he  exploited  agriculture, 
the  other  farmers  had  to  get  at  something  else. 
Since  there  was  no  way  to  successfully  compete  with 
him  in  any  vocation,  the  law  had  to  step  in  and  save 
the  Christian  from  the  poorhouse.  Trade  after 
trade  was  taken  away  from  the  Jew  by  statute  till 
practically  none  was  left.  He  was  forbidden  to 
engage  in  agriculture;  he  was  forbidden  to  practise 
law;  he  was  forbidden  to  practise  medicine,  except 
among  Jews;  he  was  forbidden  the  handicrafts. 
Even  the  seats  of  learning  and  the  schools  of  science 
had  to  be  closed  against  this  tremendous  antagonist. 
Still,  almost  bereft  of  employments,  he  found  ways 
to  make  money,  even  ways  to  get  rich.  Also  ways 
to  invest  his  takings  well,  for  usury  was  not  denied 
him.  In  the  hard  conditions  suggested,  the  Jew 
without  brains  could  not  survive,  and  the  Jew  with 
brains  had  to  keep  them  in  good  training  and  well 
sharpened  up,  or  starve.  Ages  of  restriction  to  the 

273 


MARK    TWAIN 

one  tool  which  the  law  was  not  able  to  take  from 
him — his  brain — have  made  that  tool  singularly 
competent;  ages  of  compulsory  disuse  of  his  hands 
have  atrophied  them,  and  he  never  uses  them  now. 
This  history  has  a  very,  very  commercial  look,  a 
most  sordid  and  practical  commercial  look,  the  busi 
ness  aspect  of  a  Chinese  cheap-labor  crusade.  Re 
ligious  prejudices  may  account  for  one  part  of  it, 
but  not  for  the  other  nine. 

Protestants  have  persecuted  Catholics,  but  they 
did  not  take  their  livelihoods  away  from  them.  The 
Catholics  have  persecuted  the  Protestants  with 
bloody  and  awful  bitterness,  but  they  never  closed 
agriculture  and  the  handicrafts  against  them.  Why 
was  that?  That  has  the  candid  look  of  genuine 
religious  persecution,  not  a  trade-union  boycott  in  a 
religious  disguise. 

The  Jews  are  harried  and  obstructed  in  Austria 
and  Germany,  and  lately  in  France;  but  England 
and  America  give  them  an  open  field  and  yet  survive. 
Scotland  offers  them  an  unembarrassed  field  too,  but 
there  are  not  many  takers.  There  are  a  few  Jews 
in  Glasgow,  and  one  in  Aberdeen ;  but  that  is  because 
they  can't  earn  enough  to  get  away.  The  Scotch  pay 
themselves  that  compliment,  but  it  is  authentic. 

I  feel  convinced  that  the  Crucifixion  has  not  much 
to  do  with  the  world's  attitude  toward  the  Jew;  that 
the  reasons  for  it  are  older  than  that  event,  as  sug 
gested  by  Egypt's  experience  and  by  Rome's  regret 
for  having  persecuted  an  unknown  quantity  called  a 
Christian,  under  the  mistaken  impression  that  she 
was  merely  persecuting  a  Jew.  Merely  a  Jew — a. 

274 


CONCERNING    THE    JEWS 

skinned  eel  who  was  used  to  it,  presumably.  I  am 
persuaded  that  in  Russia,  Austria,  and  Germany 
nine-tenths  of  the  hostility  to  the  Jew  comes  from 
the  average  Christian's  inability  to  compete  success 
fully  with  the  average  Jew  in  business — in  either 
straight  business  or  the  questionable  sort. 

In  Berlin,  a  few  years  ago,  I  read  a  speech  which 
frankly  urged  the  expulsion  of  the  Jews  from  Ger 
many;  and  the  agitator's  reason  was  as  frank  as  his 
proposition.  It  was  this:  that  eighty-five  per  cent,  of 
the  successful  lawyers  of  Berlin  were  Jews,  and  that 
about  the  same  percentage  of  the  great  and  lucrative 
businesses  of  all  sorts  in  Germany  were  in  the  hands 
of  the  Jewish  race !  Isn't  it  an  amazing  confession  ? 
It  was  but  another  way  of  saying  that  in  a  popula 
tion  of  48,000,000,  of  whom  only  500,000  were 
registered  as  Jews,  eighty-five  per  cent,  of  the  brains 
and  honesty  of  the  whole  was  lodged  in  the  Jews. 
I  must  insist  upon  the  honesty — it  is  an  essential 
of  successful  business,  taken  by  and  large.  Of 
course  it  does  not  rule  out  rascals  entirely,  even 
among  Christians,  but  it  is  a  good  working  rule, 
nevertheless.  The  speaker's  figures  may  have  been 
inexact,  but  the  motive  of  persecution  stands  out  as 
clear  as  day. 

The  man  claimed  that  in  Berlin  the  banks,  the 
newspapers,  the  theaters,  the  great  mercantile, 
shipping,  mining,  and  manufacturing  interests,  the 
big  army  and  city  contracts,  the  tramways,  and 
pretty  much  all  other  properties  of  high  value,  and 
also  the  small  businesses — were  in  the  hands  of  the 
Jews.  He  said  the  Jew  was  pushing  the  Christian 

275 


MARK    TWAIN 

to  the  wall  all  along  the  line;  that  it  was  all  a 
Christian  could  do  to  scrape  together  a  living;  and 
that  the  Jew  must  be  banished,  and  soon — there  was 
no  other  way  of  saving  the  Christian.  Here  in 
Vienna,  last  autumn,  an  agitator  said  that  all  these 
disastrous  details  were  true  of  Austria-Hungary 
also;  and  in  fierce  language  he  demanded  the  ex 
pulsion  of  the  Jews.  When  politicians  come  out 
without  a  blush  and  read  the  baby  act  in  this  frank 
way,  unrebuked,  it  is  a  very  good  indication  that 
they  have  a  market  back  of  them,  and  know  where 
to  fish  for  votes. 

You  note  the  crucial  point  of  the  mentioned 
agitation;  the  argument  is  that  the  Christian  cannot 
compete  with  the  Jew,  and  that  hence  his  very  bread 
is  in  peril.  To  human  beings  this  is  a  much  more 
hate-inspiring  thing  than  is  any  detail  connected 
with  religion.  With  most  people,  of  a  necessity, 
bread  and  meat  take  first  rank,  religion  second.  I 
am  convinced  that  the  persecution  of  the  Jew  is  not 
due  in  any  large  degree  to  religious  prejudice. 

No,  the  Jew  is  a  money-getter;  and  in  getting  his 
money  he  is  a  very  serious  obstruction  to  less 
capable  neighbors  who  are  on  the  same  quest.  I 
think  that  that  is  the  trouble.  In  estimating  worldly 
values  the  Jew  is  not  shallow,  but  deep.  With 
precocious  wisdom  he  found  out  in  the  morning  of 
time  that  some  men  worship  rank,  some  worship 
heroes,  some  worship  power,  some  worship  God,  and 
that  over  these  ideals  they  dispute  and  cannot  unite 
— but  that  they  all  worship  money;  so  he  made  it 
the  end  and  aim  of  his  life  to  get  it.  He  was  at 

276 


CONCERNING    THE    JEWS 

it  in  Egypt  thirty-six  centuries  ago;  he  was  at  it  in 
Rome  when  that  Christian  got  persecuted  by  mistake 
for  him;  he  has  been  at  it  ever  since.  The  cost  to 
him  has  been  heavy ;  his  success  has  made  the  whole 
human  race  his  enemy — but  it  has  paid,  for  it  has 
brought  him  envy,  and  tha1  is  the  only  thing  which 
men  will  sell  both  soul  and  body  to  get.  He  long 
ago  observed  that  a  millionaire  commands  respect, 
a  two-millionaire  homage,  a  multi-millionaire  the 
deepest  deeps  of  adoration.  We  all  know  that 
feeling;  we  have  seen  it  express  itself.  We  have 
noticed  that  when  the  average  man  mentions  the 
name  of  a  multi-millionaire  he  does  it  with  that 
mixture  in  his  voice  of  awe  and  reverence  and  lust 
which  burns  in  a  Frenchman's  eye  when  it  falls  on 
another  man's  centime. 

Point  No.  4. — "The  Jews  have  no  party;  they  are 
non-participants/ ' 

Perhaps  you  have  let  the  secret  out  and  given 
yourself  away.  It  seems  hardly  a  credit  to  the  race 
that  it  is  able  to  say  that;  or  to  you,  sir,  that  you 
can  say  it  without  remorse;  more,  that  you  should 
offer  it  as  a  plea  against  maltreatment,  injustice,  and 
oppression.  Who  gives  the  Jew  the  right,  who  gives 
any  race  the  right,  to  sit  still,  in  a  free  country, 
and  let  somebody  else  look  after  its  safety?  The 
oppressed  Jew  was  entitled  to  all  pity  in  the  former 
times  under  brutal  autocracies,  for  he  was  weak  and 
friendless,  and  had  no  way  to  help  his  case.  But 
he  has  ways  now,  and  he  has  had  them  for  a  century, 
but  I  do  not  see  that  he  has  tried  to  make  serious 
use  of  them.  When  the  Revolution  set  him  free  in 

377 


MARK    TWAIN 

France  it  was  an  act  of  grace — the  grace  of  other 
people;  he  does  not  appear  in  it  as  a  helper.  I  do 
not  know  that  he  helped  when  England  set  him  free. 
Among  the  Twelve  Sane  Men  of  France  who  have 
stepped  forward  with  great  Zola  at  their  head  to 
fight  (and  win,  I  hope  and  believe1)  the  battle  for 
the  most  infamously  misused  Jew  of  modern  times, 
do  you  find  a  great  or  rich  or  illustrious  Jew  helping? 
In  the  United  States  he  was  created  free  in  the 
beginning — he  did  not  need  to  help,  of  course.  In 
Austria,  and  Germany,  and  France  he  has  a  vote, 
but  of  what  considerable  use  is  it  to  him?  He 
doesn't  seem  to  know  how  to  apply  it  to  the  best  . 
effect.  With  all  his  splendid  capacities  and  all  his 
fat  wealth  he  is  to-day  not  politically  important  in 
any  country.  In  America,  as  early  as  1854,  the 
ignorant  Irish  hod-carrier,  who  had  a  spirit  of  his 
own  and  a  way  of  exposing  it  to  the  weather,  made 
it  apparent  to  all  that  he  must  be  politically  reckoned 
with;  yet  fifteen  years  before  that  we  hardly  knew 
what  an  Irishman  looked  like.  As  an  intelligent 
force,  and  numerically,  he  has  always  been  away 
down,  but  he  has  governed  the  country  just  the 
same.  It  was  because  he  was  organized.  It  made 
his  vote  valuable — in  fact,  essential. 

You  will  say  the  Jew  is  everywhere  numerically 
feeble.  That  is  nothing  to  the  point — with  the 
Irishman's  history  for  an  object-lesson.  But  I  am 
coming  to  your  numerical  feebleness  presently.  In 
all  parliamentary  countries  you  could  no  doubt  elect 
Jews  to  the  legislatures — and  even  one  member  in 

*  The  article  was  written  in  the  summer  of  1898. — EDITOR, 


CONCERNING    THE    JEWS 

such  a  body  is  sometimes  a  force  which  counts. 
How  deeply  have  you  concerned  yourselves  about 
this  in  Austria,  France,  and  Germany?  Or  even  in 
America  for  that  matter  ?  You  remark  that  the  Jews 
were  not  to  blame  for  the  riots  in  this  Reichsrath 
here,  and  you  add  with  satisfaction  that  there  wasn't 
one  in  that  body.  That  is  not  strictly  correct;  if  it 
were,  would  it  not  be  in  order  for  you  to  explain  it 
and  apologize  for  it,  not  try  to  make  a  merit  of  it? 
But  I  think  that  the  Jew  was  by  no  means  in  as  large 
force  there  as  he  ought  to  have  been,  with  his 
chances.  Austria  opens  the  suffrage  to  him  on  fairly 
liberal  terms,  and  it  must  surely  be  his  own  fault 
that  he  is  so  much  in  the  background  politically. 

As  to  your  numerical  weakness.  I  mentioned 
some  figures  awhile  ago — 500,000 — as  the  Jewish 
population  of  Germany.  I  will  add  some  more— 
6,000,000  in  Russia,  5,000,000  in  Austria,  250,000 
in  the  United  States.  I  take  them  from  memory; 
I  read  them  in  the  Encyclopaedia  Britannica  about 
ten  years  ago.  Still,  I  am  entirely  sure  of  them. 
If  those  statistics  are  correct,  my  argument  is  not 
as  strong  as  it  ought  to  be  as  concerns  America, 
but  it  still  has  strength.  It  is  plenty  strong  enough 
as  concerns  Austria,  for  ten  years  ago  5,000,000 
was  nine  per  cent,  of  the  empire's  population. 
The  Irish  would  govern  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  if 
they  had  a  strength  there  like  that. 

I  have  some  suspicions ;  I  got  them  at  second  hand, 
but  they  have  remained  with  me  these  ten  or  twelve 
years.  When  I  read  in  the  E.  B.  that  the  Jewish 
population  of  the  United  States  was  250,000,  I 

19  279 


MARK    TWAIN 

wrote  the  editor,  and  explained  to  him  that  I  was 
personally  acquainted  with  more  Jews  than  that  in 
my  country,  and  that  his  figures  were  without  doubt 
a  misprint  for  25,000,000.  I  also  added  that  I  was 
personally  acquainted  with  that  many  there;  but 
that  was  only  to  raise  his  confidence  in  me,  for  it 
was  not  true.  His  answer  miscarried,  and  I  never 
got  it;  but  I  went  around  talking  about  the  matter, 
and  people  told  me  they  had  reason  to  suspect  that 
for  business  reasons  many  Jews  whose  dealings  were 
mainly  with  the  Christians  did  not  report  them 
selves  as  Jews  in  the  census.  It  looked  plausible ;  it 
looks  plausible  yet.  Look  at  the  city  of  New  York; 
and  look  at  Boston,  and  Philadelphia,  and  New 
Orleans,  and  Chicago,  and  Cincinnati,  and  San 
Francisco — how  your  race  swarms  in  those  places ! — 
and  everywhere  else  in  America,  down  to  the  least 
little  village.  Read  the  signs  on  the  marts  of  com 
merce  and  on  the  shops:  Goldstein  (gold  stone), 
Edelstein  (precious  stone),  Blumenthal  (flower- vale) , 
Rosenthal  (rose- vale),  Veilchenduft  (violet  odor), 
Singvogel  (song-bird),  Rosenzweig  (rose  branch),  and 
all  the  amazing  list  of  beautiful  and  enviable  names 
which  Prussia  and  Austria  glorified  you  with  so  long 
ago.  It  is  another  instance  of  Europe's  coarse  and 
cruel  persecution  of  your  race ;  not  that  it  was  coarse 
and  cruel  to  outfit  it  with  pretty  and  poetical  names 
like  those,  but  that  it  was  coarse  and  cruel  to  make 
it  pay  for  them  or  else  take  such  hideous  and  often 
indecent  names  that  to-day  their  owners  never  use 
them;  or,  if  they  do,  only  on  official  papers.  And 
it  was  the  many,  not  the  few.  who  got  the  odious 

280 


CONCERNING    THE    JEWS 

names,  they  being  too  poor  to  bribe  the  officials  to 
grant  them  better  ones. 

Now  why  was  the  race  renamed?  I  have  been 
told  that  in  Prussia  it  was  given  to  using  fictitious 
names,  and  often  changing  them,  so  as  to  beat  the 
tax-gatherer,  escape  military  service,  and  so  on;  and 
that  finally  the  idea  was  hit  upon  of  furnishing  all 
the  inmates  of  a  house  with  one  and  the  same  surname, 
and  then  holding  the  house  responsible  right  along 
for  those  inmates,  and  accountable  for  any  disap 
pearances  that  might  occur;  it  made  the  Jews  keep 
track  of  each  other,  for  self-interest's  sake,  and  saved 
the  government  the  trouble.1 

If  that  explanation  of  how  the  Jews  of  Prussia 
came  to  be  renamed  is  correct,  if  it  is  true  that  they 
fictitiously  registered  themselves  to  gain  certain  ad 
vantages,  it  may  possibly  be  true  that  in  America 
they  refrain  from  registering  themselves  as  Jews  to 
fend  off  the  damaging  prejudices  of  the  Christian 
customer.  I  have  no  way  of  knowing  whether  this 
notion  is  well  founded  or  not.  There  may  be  other 
and  better  ways  of  explaining  why  only  that  poor 
little  250,000  of  our  Jews  got  into  the  Encyclopaedia. 
I  may,  of  course,  be  mistaken,  but  I  am  strongly 

JIn  Austria  the  renaming  was  merely  done  because  the  Jews  in 
some  newly  acquired  regions  had  no  surnames,  but  were  mostly 
named  Abraham  and  Moses,  and  therefore  the  tax-gatherer  could 
not  tell  t'other  from  which,  and  was  likely  to  lose  his  reason  over 
the  matter.  The  renaming  was  put  into  the  hands  of  the  War 
Department,  and  a  charming  mess  the  graceless  young  lieutenants 
made  of  it.  To  them  a  Jew  was  of  no  sort  of  consequence,  and  they 
labeled  the  race  in  a  way  to  make  the  angels  weep.  As  an  example 
take  these  two!  Abraham  Bellyache  and  Schmul  Godbedamned. — 
Culled  from  "  Namens  Studien"  by  Karl  Emit  Franzos. 

J9  281 


MARK    TWAIN 

of  the  opinion  that  we  have  an  immense  JewisK 
population  in  America. 

Point  No.  j. — ' '  Can  Jews  do  anything  to  improve 
the  situation?" 

I  think  so.  If  I  may  make  a  suggestion  without 
seeming  to  be  trying  to  teach  my  grandmother  how 
to  suck  eggs,  I  will  offer  it.  In  our  days  we  have 
learned  the  value  of  combination.  We  apply  it 
everywhere — in  railway  systems,  in  trusts,  in  trade- 
unions,  in  Salvation  Armies,  in  minor  politics,  in 
major  politics,  in  European  Concerts.  Whatever 
our  strength  may  be,  big  or  little,  we  organize  it. 
We  have  found  out  that  that  is  the  only  way  to  get 
the  most  out  of  it  that  is  in  it.  We  know  the  weak 
ness  of  individual  sticks,  and  the  strength  of  the 
concentrated  fagot.  Suppose  you  try  a  scheme  like 
this,  for  instance.  In  England  and  America  put 
every  Jew  on  the  census-book  as  a  Jew  (in  case  you 
have  not  been  doing  that).  Get  up  volunteer 
regiments  composed  of  Jews  solely,  and,  when  the 
drum  beats,  fall  in  and  go  to  the  front,  so  as  to  re 
move  the  reproach  that  you  have  few  Massenas 
among  you,  and  that  you  feed  on  a  country  but 
don't  like  to  fight  for  it.  Next,  in  politics,  organise 
your  strength,  band  together,  and  deliver  the  casting 
vote  where  you  can,  and,  where  you  can't,  compel  as 
good  terms  as  possible.  You  huddle  to  yourselves 
already  in  all  countries,  but  you  huddle  to  no  suffi 
cient  purpose,  politically  speaking.  You  do  not 
seem  to  be  organized,  except  for  your  charities. 
There  you  are  omnipotent;  there  you  compel  your 
due  of  recognition — you  do  not  have  to  beg  for  it. 

282 


CONCERNING    THE    JEWS 

It  shows  what  you  can  do  when  you  band  together 
for  a  definite  purpose. 

And  then  from  America  and  England  you  can 
encourage  your  race  in  Austria,  France,  and  Ger 
many,  and  materially  help  it.  It  was  a  pathetic 
tale  that  was  told  by  a  poor  Jew  in  Galicia  a  fortnight 
ago  during  the  riots,  after  he  had  been  raided  by 
the  Christian  peasantry  and  despoiled  of  everything 
he  had.  He  said  his  vote  was  of  no  value  to  him, 
and  he  wished  he  could  be  excused  from  casting  it, 
for  indeed  casting  it  was  a  sure  damage  to  him,  since 
no  matter  which  party  he  voted  for,  the  other  party 
would  come  straight  and  take  its  revenge  out  of  him. 
Nine  per  cent,  of  the  population  of  the  empire,  these 
Jews,  and  apparently  they  cannot  put  a  plank  into 
any  candidate's  platform!  If  you  will  send  our 
Irish  lads  over  here  I  think  they  will  organize  your 
race  and  change  the  aspect  of  the  Reichsrath. 

You  seem  to  think  that  the  Jews  take  no  hand 
in" 'politics  here,  that  they  are  "absolutely  non- 
participants."  I  am  assured  by  men  competent  to 
speak  that  this  is  a  very  large  error,  that  the  Jews 
are  exceedingly  active  in  politics  all  over  the  em 
pire,  but  that  they  scatter  their  work  and  their  votes 
among  the  numerous  parties,  and  thus  lose  the  ad 
vantages  to  be  had  by  concentration.  I  think  that 
in  America  they  scatter  too,  but  you  know  more 
about  that  than  I  do. 

Speaking  of  concentration,  Dr.  Herzl  has  a  clear 
insight  into  the  value  of  that.  Have  you  heard  of 
his  plan?  He  wishes  to  gather  the  Jews  of  the 
world  together  in  Palestine,  with  a  government  of 

283 


MARK    TWAIN 

their  own — under  the  suzerainty  of  the  Sultan,  I  sup 
pose.  At  the  convention  of  Berne,  last  year,  there 
were  delegates  from  everywhere,  and  the  proposal 
was  received  with  decided  favor.  I  am  not  the 
Sultan,  and  I  am  not  objecting;  but  if  that  concen 
tration  of  the  cunningest  brains  in  the  world  was 
going  to  be  made  in  a  free  country  (bar  Scotland), 
I  think  it  would  be  politic  to  stop  it.  It  will  not  be 
well  to  let  that  race  find  out  its  strength.  If  the 
horses  knew  theirs,  we  should  not  ride  any  more. 

Point  No.  5. — "Will  the  persecution  of  the  Jews 
ever  come  to  an  end?" 

On  the  score  of  religion,  I  think  it  has  already  come 
to  an  end.  On  the  score  of  race  prejudice  and 
trade,  I  have  the  idea  that  it  will  continue.  That 
is,  here  and  there  in  spots  about  the  world,  where  a 
barbarous  ignorance  and  a  sort  of  mere  animal 
civilization  prevail;  but  I  do  not  think  that  else 
where  the  Jew  need  now  stand  in  any  fear  of  being 
robbed  and  raided.  Among  the  high  civilizations 
he  seems  to  be  very  comfortably  situated  indeed,  and 
to  have  more  than  his  proportionate  share  of  the 
prosperities  going.  It  has  that  look  in  Vienna.  I 
suppose  the  race  prejudice  cannot  be  removed;  but 
he  can  stand  that;  it  is  no  particular  matter.  By 
his  make  and  ways  he  is  substantially  a  foreigner 
wherever  he  may  be,  and  even  the  angels  dislike  a 
foreigner.  I  am  using  this  word  foreigner  in  the 
German  sense — stranger.  Nearly  all  of  us  have  an 
antipathy  to  a  stranger,  even  of  our  own  nationality. 
We  pile  gripsacks  in  a  vacant  seat  to  keep  him  from 
getting  it;  and  a  dog  goes  further,  and  does  as  a 

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CONCERNING    THE    JEWS 

savage  would — challenges  him  on  the  spot.  The 
German  dictionary  seems  to  make  no  distinction 
between  a  stranger  and  a  foreigner;  in  its  view  a 
stranger  is  a  foreigner — a  sound  position,  I  think. 
You  will  always  be  by  ways  and  habits  and  pred 
ilections  substantially  strangers — foreigners — wher 
ever  you  are,  and  that  will  probably  keep  the  race 
prejudice  against  you  alive. 

But  you  were  the  favorites  of  Heaven  originally, 
and  your  manifold  and  unfair  prosperities  convince 
me  that  you  have  crowded  back  into  that  snug  place 
again.  Here  is  an  incident  that  is  significant.  Last 
week  in  Vienna  a  hail-storm  struck  the  prodigious 
Central  Cemetery  and  made  wasteful  destruction 
there.  In  the  Christian  part  of  it,  according  to 
the  official  figures,  621  window-panes  were  broken; 
more  than  900  singing-birds  were  killed;  five  great 
trees  and  many  small  ones  were  torn  to  shreds  and 
the  shreds  scattered  far  and  wide  by  the  wind; 
the  ornamental  plants  and  other  decorations  of  the 
graves  were  ruined,  and  more  than  a  hundred  tomb- 
lanterns  shattered;  and  it  took  the  cemetery's  whole 
force  of  300  laborers  more  than  three  days  to  clear 
away  the  storm's  wreckage.  In  the  report  occurs 
this  remark — and  in  its  italics  you  can  hear  it 
grit  its  Christian  teeth:  "...  lediglich  die  Israel- 
itische  Abtheilung  des  Friedhofes  vom  Hagelwetter 
ganzlich  verschont  worden  war."  Not  a  hailstone 
hit  the  Jewish  reservation!  Such  nepotism  makes 
me  tired. 

Point  No.  6. — "What  has  become  of  the  golden 
rule?" 

285 


MARK    TWAIN 

It  exists,  it  continues  to  sparkle,  and  is  well  taken 
care  of.  It  is  Exhibit  A  in  the  Church's  assets,  and 
we  pull  it  out  every  Sunday  and  give  it  an  airing. 
But  you  are  not  permitted  to  try  to  smuggle  it  into 
this  discussion,  where  it  is  irrelevant  and  would  not 
feel  at  home.  It  is  strictly  religious  furniture,  like 
an  acolyte,  or  a  contribution-plate,  or  any  of  those 
things.  It  has  never  been  intruded  into  business; 
and  Jewish  persecution  is  not  a  religious  passion,  it 
is  a  business  passion. 

To  conclude. — If  the  statistics  are  right,  the  Jews 
constitute  but  one  per  cent,  of  the  human  race.  It 
suggests  a  nebulous  dim  puff  of  star  dust  lost  in  the 
blaze  of  the  Milky  Way.  Properly  the  Jew  ought 
hardly  to  be  heard  of;  but  he  is  heard  of,  has  always 
been  heard  of.  He  is  as  prominent  on  the  planet  as 
any  other  people,  and  his  commercial  importance  is 
extravagantly  out  of  proportion  to  the  smallness  of 
his  bulk.  His  contributions  to  the  world's  list  of 
great  names  in  literature,  science,  art,  music,  finance, 
medicine,  and  abstruse  learning  are  also  away  out  of 
proportion  to  the  weakness  of  his  numbers.  He  has 
made  a  marvelous  fight  in  this  world,  in  all  the  ages ; 
and  has  done  it  with  his  hands  tied  behind  him.  He 
could  be  vain  of  himself,  and  be  excused  for  it.  The 
Egyptian,  the  Babylonian,  and  the  Persian  rose, 
filled  the  planet  with  sound  and  splendor,  then  faded 
to  dream-stuff  and  passed  away;  the  Greek  and  the 
Roman  followed,  and  made  a  vast  noise,  and  they 
are  gone;  other  peoples  have  sprung  up  and  held 
their  torch  high  for  a  time,  but  it  burned  out,  and 
they  sit  in  twilight  now,  or  have  vanished.  The  Jew 

286 


CONCERNING    THE    JEWS 

saw  them  all,  beat  them  all,  and  is  now  what  he 
always  was,  exhibiting  no  decadence,  no  infirmities 
of  age,  no  weakening  of  his  parts,  no  slowing  of  his 
energies,  no  dulling  of  his  alert  and  aggressive  mind. 
All  things  are  mortal  but  the  Jew;  all  other  forces 
pass,  but  he  remains.  What  is  the  secret  of  his 
immortality  ? 


ABOUT  ALL  KINDS  OF  SHIPS 

THE   MODERN    STEAMER   AND   THE    OBSOLETE 
STEAMER 

WE  are  victims  of  one  common  superstition — 
the  superstition  that  we  realize  the  changes 
that  are  daily  taking  place  in  the  world  because  we 
read  about  them  and  know  what  they  are.  I  should 
not  have  supposed  that  the  modern  ship  could  be 
a  surprise  to  me,  but  it  is.  It  seems  to  be  as  much 
of  a  surprise  to  me  as  it  could  have  been  if  I  had 
never  read  anything  about  it.  I  walk  about  this 
great  vessel,  the  Havel,  as  she  plows  her  way  through 
the  Atlantic,  and  every  detail  that  comes  under  my 
eye  brings  up  the  miniature  counterpart  of  it  as  it 
existed  in  the  little  ships  I  crossed  the  ocean  in  fotuv 
teen,  seventeen,  eighteen,  and  twenty  years  ago. 

In  the  Havel  one  can  be  in  several  respects  more 
comfortable  than  he  can  be  in  the  best  hotels  on  the 
continent  of  Europe.  For  instance,  she  has  several 
bathrooms,  and  they  are  as  convenient  and  as  nicely 
equipped  as  the  bathrooms  in  a  fine  private  house 
in  America;  whereas  in  the  hotels  of  the  Continent 
one  bathroom  is  considered  sufficient,  and  it  is  gen 
erally  shabby  and  located  in  some  out-of-the-way 
corner  of  the  house;  moreover,  you  need  to  give 
notice  so  long  beforehand  that  you  get  over  wanting 

283 


ABOUT    ALL    KINDS    OF    SHIPS 

a  bath  by  the  time  you  get  it.  In  the  hotels  there 
are  a  good  many  different  kinds  of  noises,  and  they 
spoil  sleep ;  in  my  room  in  the  ship  I  hear  no  sounds. 
In  the  hotels  they  usually  shut  off  the  electric  light 
at  midnight;  in  the  ship  one  may  burn  it  in  one's 
room  all  night. 

In  the  steamer  Batavia,  twenty  years  ago,  one 
candle,  set  in  the  bulkhead  between  two  staterooms, 
was  there  to  light  both  rooms,  but  did  not  light  either 
of  them.  It  was  extinguished  at  eleven  at  night,  and 
so  were  all  the  saloon  lamps  except  one  or  two,  which 
were  left  burning  to  help  the  passenger  see  how  to 
break  his  neck  trying  to  get  around  in  the  dark. 
The  passengers  sat  at  table  on  long  benches  made  of 
the  hardest  kind  of  wood;  in  the  Havel  one  sits  on  a 
swivel  chair  with  a  cushioned  back  to  it.  In  those 
old  times  the  dinner  bill  of  fare  was  always  the  same : 
a  pint  of  some  simple,  homely  soup  or  other,  boiled 
codfish  and  potatoes,  slab  of  boiled  beef,  stewed 
prunes  for  dessert — on  Sundays  "dog  in  a  blanket," 
on  Thursdays  "plum  duff."  In  the  modern  ship 
the  menu  is  choice  and  elaborate,  and  is  changed 
daily.  In  the  old  times  dinner  was  a  sad  occasion; 
in  our  day  a  concealed  orchestra  enlivens  it  with 
charming  music.  In  the  old  days  the  decks  were 
always  wet ;  in  our  day  they  are  usually  dry,  for  the 
promenade-deck  is  roofed  over,  and  a  sea  seldom 
comes  aboard.  In  a  moderately  disturbed  sea,  in 
the  old  days,  a  landsman  could  hardly  keep  his  legs, 
but  in  such  a  sea  in  our  day  the  decks  are  as  level  as 
a  table.  In  the  old  days  the  inside  of  a  ship  was  the 
plainest  and  barrenest  thing,  and  the  most  dismal 

289 


MARK    TWAIN 

and  uncomfortable  that  ingenuity  could  devise;  the 
modern  ship  is  a  marvel  of  rich  and  costly  decora 
tion  and  sumptuous  appointment,  and  is  equipped 
with  every  comfort  and  convenience  that  money  can 
buy.  The  old  ships  had  no  place  of  assembly  but 
the  dining-room,  the  new  ones  have  several  spacious 
and  beautiful  drawing-rooms.  The  old  ships  offered 
the  passenger  no  chance  to  smoke  except  in  the  place 
that  was  called  the  "fiddle."  It  was  a  repulsive  den 
made  of  rough  boards  (full  of  cracks)  and  its  office 
was  to  protect  the  main  hatch.  It  was  grimy  and 
dirty;  there  were  no  seats;  the  only  light  was  a  lamp 
of  the  rancid  oil-and-rag  kind;  the  place  was  very 
cold,  and  never  dry,  for  the  seas  broke  in  through  the 
cracks  every  little  while  and  drenched  the  cavern 
thoroughly.  In  the  modern  ship  there  are  three  or 
four  large  smoking  rooms,  and  they  have  card- 
tables  and  cushioned  sofas,  and  are  heated  by  steam 
and  lighted  by  electricity.  There  are  few  European 
hotels  with  such  smoking-rooms. 

The  former  ships  were  built  of  wood,  and  had  two 
or  three  water-tight  compartments  in  the  hold  with 
doors  in  them  which  were  often  left  open,  particu 
larly  when  the  ship  was  going  to  hit  a  rock.  The 
modern  leviathan  is  built  of  steel,  and  the  water 
tight  bulkheads  have  no  doors  in  them;  they  divide 
the  ship  into  nine  or  ten  water-tight  compartments 
and  endow  her  with  as  many  lives  as  a  cat.  Their 
complete  efficiency  was  established  by  the  happy 
results  following  the  memorable  accident  to  the  City 
of  Paris  a  year  or  two  ago. 

One  curious  thing  which  is  at  once  noticeable  in 

290 


ABOUT    ALL    KINDS    OF    SHIPS 

the  great  modern  ship  is  the  absence  of  hubbub 
clatter,  rush  of  feet,  roaring  of  orders.  That  is  all 
gone  by.  The  elaborate  manceuvers  necessary  in 
working  the  vessel  into  her  dock  are  conducted  with 
out  sounds;  one  sees  nothing  of  the  processes,  hears 
no  commands.  A  Sabbath  stillness  and  solemnity 
reign,  in  place  of  the  turmoil  and  racket  of  the  earlier 
days.  The  modern  ship  has  a  spacious  bridge  fenced 
chin-high  with  sail-cloth  and  floored  with  wooden 
gratings ;  and  this  bridge,  with  its  fenced  fore-and-aft 
annexes,  could  accommodate  a  seated  audience  of  a 
hundred  and  fifty  men.  There  are  three  steering 
equipments,  each  competent  if  the  others  should 
break.  From  the  bridge  the  ship  is  steered,  and  also 
handled.  The  handling  is  not  done  by  shout  or 
whistle,  but  by  signaling  with  patent  automatic 
gongs.  There  are  three  telltales,  with  plainly  let 
tered  dials — for  steering,  handling  the  engines,  and 
for  communicating  orders  to  the  invisible  mates  who 
are  conducting  the  landing  of  the  ship  or  casting  off. 
The  officer  who  is  astern  is  out  of  sight  and  too  far 
away  to  hear  trumpet-calls;  but  the  gongs  near  him 
tell  him  to  haul  in,  pay  out,  make  fast,  let  go,  and 
so  on;  he  hears,  but  the  passengers  do  not,  and  so 
the  ship  seems  to  land  herself  without  human  help. 
This  great  bridge  is  thirty  or  forty  feet  above  the 
water,  but  the  sea  climbs  up  there  sometimes;  so 
there  is  another  bridge  twelve  or  fifteen  feet  higher 
still,  for  use  in  these  emergencies.  The  force  of 
water  is  a  strange  thing.  It  slips  between  one's 
fingers  like  air,  but  upon  occasion  it  acts  like  a  solid 
body  and  will  bend  a  thin  iron  rod.  In  the  Havel 

291 


MARK    TWAIN- 

it  has  splintered  a  heavy  oaken  rail  into  broom- 
straws  instead  of  merely  breaking  it  in  two,  as  would 
have  been  the  seemingly  natural  thing  for  it  to  do. 
At  the  time  of  the  awful  Johnstown  disaster,  accord 
ing  to  the  testimony  of  several  witnesses,  rocks  were 
carried  some  distance  on  the  surface  of  the  stu 
pendous  torrent;  and  at  St.  Helena,  many  years  ago, 
a  vast  sea-wave  carried  a  battery  of  cannon  forty 
feet  up  a  steep  slope  and  deposited  the  guns  there 
in  a  row.  But  the  water  has  done  a  still  stranger 
thing,  and  it  is  one  which  is  credibly  vouched  for. 
A  marlin-spike  is  an  implement  about  a  foot  long 
which  tapers  from  its  butt  to  the  other  extremity 
and  ends  in  a  sharp  point.  It  is  made  of  iron  and 
is  heavy.  A  wave  came  aboard  a  ship  in  a  storm 
and  raged  aft,  breast  high,  carrying  a  marlin-spike 
point  first  with  it,  and  with  such  lightning-like  swift 
ness  and  force  as  to  drive  it  three  or  four  inches  into 
a  sailor's  body  and  kill  him. 

In  all  ways  the  ocean  greyhound  of  to-day  is  im 
posing  and  impressive  to  one  who  carries  in  his  head 
no  ship  pictures  of  a  recent  date.  In  bulk  she  comes 
near  to  rivaling  the  Ark;  yet  this  monstrous  mass  of 
steel  is  driven  five  hundred  miles  through  the  waves 
in  twenty-four  hours.  I  remember  the  brag  run  of 
a  steamer  which  I  traveled  in  once  on  the  Pacific — 
it  was  two  hundred  and  nine  miles  in  twenty-four 
hours;  a  year  or  so  later  I  was  a  passenger  in  the 
excursion  tub  Quaker  City,  and  on  one  occasion  in  a 
level  and  glassy  sea  it  was  claimed  that  she  reeled 
off  two  hundred  and  eleven  miles  between  noon  and 
noon,  but  it  was  probably  a  campaign  lie.  That 

292 


ABOUT    ALL    KINDS    OF    SHIPS 

little  steamer  had  seventy  passengers,  and  a  crew  of 
forty  men,  and  seemed  a  good  deal  of  a  beehive. 
But  in  this  present  ship  we  are  living  in  a  sort  of 
solitude,  these  soft  summer  days,  with  sometimes  a 
hundred  passengers  scattered  about  the  spacious 
distances,  and  sometimes  nobody  in  sight  at  all;  yet, 
hidden  somewhere  in  the  vessel's  bulk,  there  are 
(including  crew)  near  eleven  hundred  people. 

The  stateliest  lines  in  the  literature  of  the  sea  are 
these : 

Britannia  needs  no  bulwarks,  no  towers  along  the  steep — 
Her  march  is  o'er  the  mountain  waves,  her  home  is  on 
the  deep ! 

There  it  is.  In  those  old  times  the  little  ships 
climbed  over  the  waves  and  wallowed  down  into  the 
trough  on  the  other  side;  the  giant  ship  of  our  day 
does  not  climb  over  the  waves,  but  crushes  her  way 
through  them.  Her  formidable  weight  and  mass  and 
impetus  give  her  mastery  over  any  but  extraordinary 
storm  waves. 

The  ingenuity  of  man!  I  mean  in  this  passing 
generation.  To-day  I  found  in  the  chart-room  a 
frame  of  removable  wooden  slats  on  the  wall,  and 
on  the  slats  was  painted  uninforming  information 
like  this 

Trim-Tank Empty 

Double-Bottom  No.  i Full 

Double-Bottom  No.  2 Full 

Double-Bottom  No.  3 Full 

Double-Bottom  No.  4 Full 

While  I  was  trying  to  think  out  what  kind  of  a 
game  this  might  be  and  how  a  stranger  might  best 

293 


MARK     TWAIN 

go  to  work  to  beat  it,  a  sailor  came  in  and  pulled  out 
the  "Empty"  end  of  the  first  slat  and  put  it  back 
with  its  reverse  side  to  the  front,  marked  "Full." 
He  made  some  other  change,  I  did  not  notice  what. 
The  slat-frame  was  soon  explained.  Its  function 
was  to  indicate  how  the  ballast  in  the  ship  was  dis 
tributed.  The  striking  thing  was  that  the  ballast 
was  water.  I  did  not  know  that  a  ship  had  ever 
been  ballasted  with  water.  I  had  merely  read,  some 
time  or  other,  that  such  an  experiment  was  to  be 
tried.  But  that  is  the  modern  way;  between  the 
experimental  trial  of  a  new  thing  and  its  adoption, 
there  is  no  wasted  time,  if  the  trial  proves  its  value. 

On  the  wall,  near  the  slat-frame,  there  was  an 
outline  drawing  of  the  ship,  and  this  betrayed  the 
fact  that  this  vessel  has  twenty-two  considerable 
lakes  of  water  in  her.  These  lakes  are  in  her  bottom ; 
they  are  imprisoned  between  her  real  bottom  and  a 
false  bottom.  They  are  separated  from  each  other, 
thwart  ships,  by  water-tight  bulkheads,  and  separated 
down  the  middle  by  a  bulkhead  running  from  the 
bow  four-fifths  of  the  way  to  the  stern.  It  is  a  chain 
of  lakes  four  hundred  feet  long  and  from  five  to 
seven  feet  deep.  Fourteen  of  the  lakes  contain  fresh 
water  brought  from  shore,  and  the  aggregate  weight 
of  it  is  four  hundred  tons.  The  rest  of  the  lakes 
contain  salt-water — six  hundred  and  eighteen  tons. 
Upward  of  a  thousand  tons  of  water,  altogether. 

Think  how  handy  this  ballast  is.  The  ship  leaves 
port  with  the  lakes  all  full.  As  she  lightens  forward 
through  consumption  of  coal,  she  loses  trim — her 
head  rises,  her  stern  sinks  down.  Then  they  spill 


ABOUT    ALL    KINDS    OF    SHIPS 

one  of  the  stern  ward  lakes  into  the  sea,  and  the  trim 
is  restored.  This  can  be  repeated  right  along  as 
occasion  may  require.  Also,  a  lake  at  one  end  of  the 
ship  can  be  moved  to  the  other  end  by  pipes  and 
steam-pumps.  When  the  sailor  changed  the  slat- 
frame  to-day,  he  was  posting  a  transference  of  that 
kind.  The  seas  had  been  increasing,  and  the  vessel's 
head  needed  more  weighting,  to  keep  it  from  rising 
on  the  waves  instead  of  plowing  through  them; 
therefore,  twenty-five  tons  of  water  had  been  trans 
ferred  to  the  bow  from  a  lake  situated  wrell  toward 
the  stern. 

A  water  compartment  is  kept  either  full  or  empty. 
The  body  of  water  must  be  compact,  so  that  it  cannot 
slosh  around.  A  shifting  ballast  would  not  do,  of 
course. 

The  modern  ship  is  full  of  beautiful  ingenuities, 
but  it  seems  to  me  that  this  one  is  the  king.  I 
would  rather  be  the  originator  of  that  idea  than  of 
any  of  the  others.  Perhaps  the  trim  of  a  ship  was 
never  perfectly  ordered  and  preserved  until  now. 
A  vessel  out  of  trim  will  not  steer,  her  speed  is 
maimed,  she  strains  and  labors  in  the  seas.  Poor 
creature,  for  six  thousand  years  she  has  had  no  com 
fort  until  these  latest  days.  For  six  thousand  years 
she  swam  through  the  best  and  cheapest  ballast  in 
the  world,  the  only  perfect  ballast,  but  she  couldn't 
tell  her  master  and  he  had  not  the  wit  to  find  it  out 
for  himself.  It  is  odd  to  reflect  that  there  is  nearly 
as  much  wrater  inside  of  this  ship  as  there  is  outside, 
and  yet  there  is  no  danger. 

20 


MARK    TWAIN 


NOAH'S  ARK 

THE  progress  made  in  the  great  art  of  ship 
building  since  Noah's  time  is  quite  noticeable.  Also, 
the  looseness  of  the  navigation  laws  in  the  time  of 
Noah  is  in  quite  striking  contrast  with  the  strictness 
of  the  navigation  laws  of  our  time.  It  would  not  be 
possible  for  Noah  to  do  in  our  day  what  he  was 
permitted  to  do  in  his  own.  Experience  has  taught 
us  the  necessity  of  being  more  particular,  more  con 
servative,  more  careful  of  human  life.  Noah  would 
not  be  allowed  to  sail  from  Bremen  in  our  day.  The 
inspectors  would  come  and  examine  the  Ark,  and 
make  all  sorts  of  objections.  A  person  who  knows 
Germany  can  imagine  the  scene  and  the  conversation 
without  difficulty  and  without  missing  a  detail.  The 
inspector  would  be  in  a  beautiful  military  uniform; 
he  would  be  respectful,  dignified,  kindly,  the  perfect 
gentleman,  but  steady  as  the  north  star  to  the  last 
requirement  of  his  duty.  He  would  make  Noah  tell 
him  where  he  was  born,  and  how  old  he  was,  and 
what  religious  sect  he  belonged  to,  and  the  amount 
of  his  income,  and  the  grade  and  position  he  claimed 
socially,  and  the  name  and  style  of  his  occupation, 
and  how  many  wives  and  children  he  had,  and  how 
many  servants,  and  the  name,  sex,  and  age  of  the 
whole  of  them;  and  if  he  hadn't  a  passport  he  would 
be  courteously  required  to  get  one  right  away.  Then 
he  would  take  up  the  matter  of  the  Ark: 

''What  is  her  length?" 

"Six  hundred  feet." 

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ABOUT    ALL    KINDS    OF    SHIPS 

"Depth?" 

"Sixty-five." 

"Beam?" 

"Fifty  or  sixty." 

"Built  of—" 

"Wood." 

"What  kind?" 

"Shittim  and  gopher." 

"Interior  and  exterior  decorations?" 

"Pitched  within  and  without." 

"Passengers?" 

"Eight." 

"Sex?" 

"Half  male,  the  others  female." 

"Ages?" 

"From  a  hundred  years  up." 

"Up  to  where?" 

"Six  hundred." 

"Ah — going  to  Chicago;  good  idea,  too.  Sur 
geon's  name?" 

"We  have  no  surgeon." 

"Must  provide  a  surgeon.  Also  an  undertaker — 
particularly  the  undertaker.  These  people  must  not 
be  left  without  the  necessities  of  life  at  their  age. 
Crew?" 

"The  same  eight." 

"The  same  eight?" 

"The  same  eight." 

"And  half  of  them  women?" 

"Yes,  sir." 

"Have  they  ever  served  as  seamen?" 

"No,  sir." 

20  297 


MARK    TWAIN 

" Have  the  men?" 

"No,  sir." 

"Have  any  of  you  ever  been  to  sea?" 

"No,  sir." 

"Where  were  you  reared?" 

"On  a  farm — all  of  us." 

"This  vessel  requires  a  crew  of  eight  hundred  men, 
she  not  being  a  steamer.  You  must  provide  them. 
She  must  have  four  mates  and  nine  cooks.  Who  is 
captain?" 

"lam,  sir." 

"You  must  get  a  captain.  Also  a  chambermaid. 
Also  sick-nurses  for  the  old  people.  Who  designed 
this  vessel?" 

"I  did,  sir." 

"Is  it  your  first  attempt?" 

"Yes,  sir." 

"I  partly  suspected  it.     Cargo?" 

"Animals." 

"Kind?" 

"All  kinds." 

"Wild,  or  tame?" 

"Mainly  wild." 

"Foreign  or  domestic?" 

"Mainly  foreign." 

"Principal  wild  ones?" 

' '  Megatherium,  elephant,  rhinoceros,  lion,tiger,  wolf , 
snakes — all  the  wild  things  of  all  climes — two  of  each. ' ' 

"Securely  caged?" 

"No,  not  caged. 

"They  must  have  iron  cages.  Who  feeds  and 
waters  the  menagerie?" 

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ABOUT    ALL    KINDS    OF    SHIPS 

"We  do." 

"The  old  people?" 

"Yes,  sir." 

"It  is  dangerous — for  both.  The  animals  must 
be  cared  for  by  a  competent  force.  How  many 
animals  are  there?" 

"Big  ones,  seven  thousand;  big  and  little  together, 
ninety-eight  thousand." 

"You  must  provide  twelve  hundred  keepers.  How 
is  the  vessel  lighted?" 

"By  two  windows." 

"Where  are  they?" 

"Up  under  the  eaves." 

"Two  windows  for  a  tunnel  six  hundred  feet  long 
and  sixty-five  feet  deep?  You  must  put  in  the 
electric  light — a  few  arc-lights  and  fifteen  hundred 
incandescents.  What  do  you  do  in  case  of  leaks? 
How  many  pumps  have  you?" 

"None,  sir." 

"You  must  provide  pumps.  How  do  you  get 
water  for  the  passengers  and  the  animals?" 

"We  let  down  the  buckets  from  the  windows." 

"It  is  inadequate.     What  is  your  motive  power?" 

"What  is  my  which?" 

"Motive  power.  What  power  do  you  use  in 
driving  the  ship?" 

"None." 

"You  must  provide  sails  or  steam.  What  is  the 
nature  of  your  steering  apparatus?" 

"We  haven't  any." 

"Haven't  you  a  rudder?" 

"No,  sir," 

299 


MARK    TWAIN 

"How  do  you  steer  the  vessel?" 

"We  don't." 

"You  must  provide  a  rudder,  and  properly  equip 
it.  How  many  anchors  have  you?" 

"None." 

"You  must  provide  six.  One  is  not  permitted  to 
sail  a  vessel  like  this  without  that  protection.  How 
many  life-boats  have  you?" 

"None,  sir." 

' '  Provide  twenty-five.  How  many  life-preservers  ? ' ' 

"None." 

"You  will  provide  two  thousand.  How  long  are 
you  expecting  your  voyage  to  last?" 

"Eleven  or  twelve  months." 

"Eleven  or  twelve  months.  Pretty  slow — but  you 
will  be  in  time  for  the  Exposition.  What  is  your  ship 
sheathed  with — copper  ? ' ' 

"Her  hull  is  bare — not  sheathed  at  all." 

"Dear  man,  the  wood-boring  creatures  of  the  sea 
would  riddle  her  like  a  sieve  and  send  her  to  the 
bottom  in  three  months.  She  cannot  be  allowed  to 
go  away  in  this  condition;  she  must  be  sheathed. 
Just  a  word  more:  Have  you  reflected  that  Chicago 
is  an  inland  city  and  not  reachable  with  a  vessel 
like  this?" 

"Shecargo?  What  is  Shecargo?  I  am  not  going 
to  Shecargo." 

"Indeed?  Then  may  I  ask  what  the  animals 
are  for?" 

"Just  to  breed  others  from." 

' '  Others  ?  Is  it  possible  that  you  haven't  enough  ?" 

"For  the  present  needs  of  civilization,  yes;  but  the 
300 


ABOUT    ALL    KINDS    OF    SHIPS 

rest  are  going  to  be  drowned  in  a  flood,  and  these 
are  to  renew  the  supply." 

"A  flood?" 

"Yes,  sir." 

"Are  you  sure  of  that?" 

"Perfectly  sure.  It  is  going  to  rain  forty  days 
and  forty  nights." 

"Give  yourself  no  concern  about  that,  dear  sir,  it 
often  does  that  here." 

"Not  this  kind  of  rain.  This  is  going  to  cover  the 
mountain-tops,  and  the  earth  will  pass  from  sight." 

"Privately — but  of  course  not  officially — I  am 
sorry  you  revealed  this,  for  it  compels  me  to  with 
draw  the  option  I  gave  you  as  to  sails  or  steam.  I 
must  require  you  to  use  steam.  Your  ship  cannot 
carry  the  hundredth  part  of  an  eleven-months'  water- 
supply  for  the  animals.  You  will  have  to  have  con 
densed  water." 

"But  I  tell  you  I  am  going  to  dip  water  from  out 
side  with  buckets." 

"It  will  not  answer.  Before  the  flood  reaches  the 
mountain-tops  the  fresh  waters  will  have  joined  the 
salt  seas,  and  it  will  all  be  salt.  You  must  put  in 
steam  and  condense  your  water.  I  will  now  bid  you 
good  day,  sir.  Did  I  understand  you  to  say  that 
this  was  your  very  first  attempt  at  ship-building?" 

"My  very  first,  sir,  I  give  you  the  honest  truth.  I 
built  this  Ark  without  having, ever  had  the  slight 
est  training  or  experience  or  instruction  in  marine 
architecture. 

"It  is  a  remarkable  work,  sir,  a  most  remarkable 
work.  I  consider  that  it  contains  more  features  that 

301 


MARK    TWAIN 

are  new — absolutely  new  and  unhackneyed — than 
are  to  be  found  in  any  other  vessel  that  swims  the 
seas." 

"This  compliment  does  me  infinite  honor,  dear  sir, 
infinite;  and  I  shall  cherish  the  memory  of  it  while, 
life  shall  last.  Sir,  I  offer  my  duty  and  most  grateful 
thanks.  Adieu." 

No,  the  German  inspector  would  be  limitlessly 
courteous  to  Noah,  and  would  make  him  feel  that  he 
was  among  friends,  but  he  wouldn't  let  him  go  to  sea 
with  that  Ark. 

COLUMBIA'S   CRAFT 

BETWEEN  Noah's  time  and  the  time  of  Columbus 
naval  architecture  underwent  some  changes,  and 
from  being  unspeakably  bad  was  improved  to  a  point 
which  may  be  described  as  less  unspeakably  bad.  I 
have  read  somewhere,  some  time  or  other,  that  one 
of  Columbus's  ships  was  a  ninety-ton  vessel.  By 
comparing  that  ship  with  the  ocean  greyhounds  of 
our  time  one  is  able  to  get  down  to  a  comprehension 
of  how  small  that  Spanish  bark  was,  and  how  little 
fitted  she  would  be  to  run  opposition  in  the  Atlantic 
passenger  trade  to-day.  It  would  take  seventy-four 
of  her  to  match  the  tonnage  of  the  Havel  and  carry 
the  Havel's  trip.  If  I  remember  rightly,  it  took  her 
ten  weeks  to  make  the  passage.  With  our  ideas  this 
would  now  be  considered  an  objectionable  gait.  She 
probably  had  a  captain,  a  mate,  and  a  crew  consisting 
of  four  seamen  and  a  boy.  The  crew  of  a  modern 
greyhound  numbers  two  hundred  and  fifty  persons. 

302 


ABOUT    ALL    KINDS    OF    SHIPS 

Columbus's  ship  being  small  and  very  old,  we  know 
that  we  may  draw  from  these  two  facts  several  abso 
lute  certainties  in  the  way  of  minor  details  which 
history  has  left  unrecorded.  For  instance:  being 
small,  we  know  that  she  rolled  and  pitched  and 
tumbled  in  any  ordinary  sea,  and  stood  on  her  head 
or  her  tail,  or  lay  down  with  her  ear  in  the  water, 
when  storm  seas  ran  high;  also,  that  she  was  used 
to  having  billows  plunge  aboard  and  wash  her  decks 
from  stem  to  stern;  also,  that  the  storm  racks  were 
on  the  table  all  the  w^ay  over,  and  that  nevertheless 
a  man's  soup  was  oftener  landed  in  his  lap  than  in 
his  stomach;  also,  that  the  dining-saloon  was  about 
ten  feet  by  seven,  dark,  airless,  and  suffocating  with 
oil-stench;  also,  that  there  was  only  about  one  state 
room,  the  size  of  a  grave,  with  a  tier  of  two  or  three 
berths  in  it  of  the  dimensions  and  comfortableness 
of  coffins,  and  that  when  the  light  was  out  the 
darkness  in  there  was  so  thick  and  real  that  you  could 
bite  into  it  and  chew  it  like  gum ;  also,  that  the  only 
promenade  was  on  the  lofty  poop-deck  astern  (for 
the  ship  was  shaped  like  a  high-quarter  shoe) — a 
streak  sixteen  feet  long  by  three  feet  wide,  all  the 
rest  of  the  vessel  being  littered  with  ropes  and 
flooded  by  the  seas. 

We  know  all  these  things  to  be  true,  from  the 
mere  fact  that  we  know  the  vessel  was  small.  As 
the  vessel  was  old,  certain  other  truths  follow,  as 
matters  of  course.  For  instance :  she  was  full  of  rats ; 
she  was  full  of  cockroaches ;  the  heavy  seas  made  her 
seams  open  and  shut  like  your  fingers,  and  she  leaked 
like  a  basket;  where  leakage  is,  there  also,  of  neces- 

3°3 


MARK    TWAIN 

sity,  is  bilge -water;  and  where  bilge-water  is,  only  the 
dead  can  enjoy  life.  This  is  on  account  of  the  smell. 
In  the  presence  of  bilge -water,  Limburger  cheese 
becomes  odorless  and  ashamed. 

From  these  absolutely  sure  data  we  can  com 
petently 'picture  the  daily  life  of  the  great  discoverer. 
In  the  early  morning  he  paid  his  devotions  at  the 
shrine  of  the  Virgin.  At  eight  bells  he  appeared  on 
the  poop-deck  promenade.  If  the  weather  was 
chilly  he  came  up  clad  from  plumed  helmet  to 
spurred  heel  in  magnificent  plate  armor  inlaid  with 
arabesques  of  gold,  having  previously  warmed  it  at 
the  galley  fire.  If  the  weather  was  warm  he  came 
up  in  the  ordinary  sailor  toggery  of  the  time — great 
slouch  hat  of  blue  velvet  with  a  flowing  brush  of 
snowy  ostrich  plumes,  fastened  on  with  a  flashing 
cluster  of  diamonds  and  emeralds;  gold-embroidered 
doublet  of  green  velvet  with  slashed  sleeves  exposing 
under-sleeves  of  crimson  satin;  deep  collar  and  cuff 
ruffles  of  rich  limp  lace;  trunk  hose  of  pink  velvet, 
with  big  knee-knots  of  brocaded  yellow  ribbon ;  pearl- 
tinted  silk  stockings,  clocked  and  daintily  em 
broidered;  lemon-colored  buskins  of  unborn  kid, 
funnel-topped,  and  drooping  low  to  expose  the  pretty 
stockings ;  deep  gauntlets  of  finest  white  heretic  skin, 
from  the  factory  of  the  Holy  Inquisition,  formerly 
part  of  the  person  of  a  lady  of  rank;  rapier  with 
sheath  crusted  with  jewels,  and  hanging  from  a 
broad  baldric  upholstered  with  rubies  and  sapphires. 

He  walked  the  promenade  thoughtfully,  he  noted 
the  aspects  of  the  sky  and  the  course  of  the  wind;  he 
kept  an  eye  out  for  drifting  vegetation  and  other 

304 


ABOUT    ALL    KINDS    OF    SHIPS 

signs  of  land;  he  jawed  the  man  at  the  wheel  for 
pastime;  he  got  out  an  imitation  egg  and  kept  him 
self  in  practice  on  his  old  trick  of  making  it  stand  on 
end;  now  and  then  he  hove  a  life-line  below  and 
fished  up  a  sailor  who  was  drowning  on  the  quarter 
deck;  the  rest  of  his  watch  he  gaped  and  yawned 
and  stretched,  and  said  he  wouldn't  make  the  trip 
again  to  discover  six  Americas.  For  that  was  the 
kind  of  natural  human  person  Columbus  was  when 
not  posing  for  posterity. 

At  noon  he  took  the  sun  and  ascertained  that  the 
good  ship  had  made  three  hundred  yards  in  twenty- 
four  hours,  and  this  enabled  him  to  win  the  pool. 
Anybody  can  win  the  pool  when  nobody  but  himself 
has  the  privilege  of  straightening  out  the  ship's  run 
and  getting  it  right. 

The  Admiral  has  breakfasted  alone,  in  state: 
bacon,  beans,  and  gin;  at  noon  he  dines  alone,  in 
state:  bacon,  beans,  and  gin;  at  six  he  sups  alone,  in 
state:  bacon,  beans,  and  gin;  at  eleven  p.  M.  he  takes 
a  night  relish  alone,  in  state:  bacon,  beans,  and  gin. 
At  none  of  these  orgies  is  there  any  music;  the  ship 
orchestra  is  modern.  After  his  final  meal  he  returned 
thanks  for  his  many  blessings,  a  little  overrating  their 
value,  perhaps,  and  then  he  laid  off  his  silken  splen 
dors  or  his  gilded  hardware,  and  turned  in,  in  his 
little  coffin-bunk,  and  blew  out  his  flickering  stencher 
and  began  to  refresh  his  lungs  with  inverted  sighs 
freighted  with  the  rich  odors  of  rancid  oil  and  bilge- 
water.  The  sighs  returned  as  snores,  and  then  the 
rats  and  the  cockroaches  swarmed  out  in  brigades 
and  divisions  and  army  corps  and  had  a  circus  all 

305 


MARK     TWAIN 

over  him.  Such  was  the  daily  life  of  the  great  dis 
coverer  in  his  marine  basket  during  several  historic 
weeks;  and  the  difference  between  his  ship  and  his 
comforts  and  ours  is  visible  almost  at  a  glance. 

When  he  returned,  the  King  of  Spain,  marveling, 
said — as  history  records : 

"This  ship  seems  to  be  leaky.  Did  she  leak 
badly?" 

"You  shall  judge  for  yourself,  sire.  I  pumped  the 
Atlantic  Ocean  through  her  sixteen  times  on  the 
passage/' 

This  is  General  Horace  Porter's  account.  Other 
authorities  say  fifteen. 

It  can  be  shown  that  the  differences  between  that 
ship  and  the  one  I  am  writing  these  historical  con 
tributions  in  are  in  several  respects  remarkable. 
Take  the  matter  of  decoration,  for  instance.  I  have 
been  looking  around  again,  yesterday  and  to-day, 
and  have  noted  several  details  which  I  conceive  to 
have  been  absent  from  Columbus's  ship,  or  at  least 
slurred  over  and  not  elaborated  and  perfected.  I 
observe  stateroom  doors  three  inches  thick,  of  solid 
oak  and  polished.  I  note  companion  way  vestibules 
with  walls,  doors,  and  ceilings  paneled  in  polished 
hard  woods,  some  light,  some  dark,  all  dainty  and 
delicate  joiner-work,  and  yet  every  point  compact 
and  tight ;  with  beautiful  pictures  inserted,  composed 
of  blue  tiles — some  of  the  pictures  containing  as 
many  as  sixty  tiles — and  the  joinings  of  those  tiles 
perfect.  These  are  daring  experiments.  One  would 
have  said  that  the  first  time  the  ship  went  straining 
and  laboring  through  a  storm-tumbled  sea  those 

306 


ABOUT    ALL    KINDS    OF    SHIPS 

tiles  would  gape  apart  and  drop  out.  That  they 
have  not  done  so  is  evidence  that  the  joiner's  art 
has  advanced  a  good  deal  since  the  days  when  ships 
were  so  shackly  that  when  a  giant  sea  gave  them  a 
wrench  the  doors  came  unbolted.  I  find  the  walls 
of  the  dining-saloon  upholstered  with  mellow  pic 
tures  wrought  in  tapestry  and  the  ceiling  aglow  with 
pictures  done  in  oil.  In  other  places  of  assembly  I 
find  great  panels  filled  with  embossed  Spanish  leather, 
the  figures  rich  with  gilding  and  bronze.  Every 
where  I  find  sumptuous  masses  of  color — color,  color, 
color — color  all  about,  color  of  every  shade  and  tint 
and  variety;  and,  as  a  result,  the  ship  is  bright  and 
cheery  to  the  eye,  and  this  cheeriness  invades  one's 
spirit  and  contents  it.  To  fully  appreciate  the  force 
and  spiritual  value  of  this  radiant  and  opulent  dream 
of  color,  one  must  stand  outside  at  night  in  the  pitch 
dark  and  the  rain,  and  look  in  through  a  port,  and 
observe  it  in  the  lavish  splendor  of  the  electric  lights. 
The  old-time  ships  were  dull,  plain,  graceless,  gloomy, 
and  horribly  depressing.  They  compelled  the  blues; 
one  could  not  escape  the  blues  in  them.  The  modern 
idea  is  right:  to  surround  the  passenger  with  con 
veniences,  luxuries,  and  abundance  of  inspiriting 
color.  As  a  result,  the  ship  is  the  pleasant est  place 
one  can  be  in,  except,  perhaps,  one's  home. 

A  VANISHED    SENTIMENT 

ONE  thing  is  gone,  to  return  no  more  forever — the 
romance  of  the  sea.  Soft  sentimentality  about  the 
sea  has  retired  from  the  activities  of  this  life,  and  is 

307 


MARK    TWAIN 

but  a  memory  of  the  past,  already  remote  and  much 
faded.  But  within  the  recollection  of  men  still 
living,  it  was  in  the  breast  of  every  individual;  and 
the  farther  any  individual  lived  from  salt-water  the 
more  of  it  he  kept  in  stock.  It  was  as  pervasive,  as 
universal,  as  the  atmosphere  itself.  The  mere  men 
tion  of  the  sea,  the  romantic  sea,  would  make  any 
company  of  people  sentimental  and  mawkish  at 
once.  The  great  majority  of  the  songs  that  were 
sung  by  the  young  people  of  the  back  settlements 
had  the  melancholy  wanderer  for  subject  and  his 
mouthings  about  the  sea  for  refrain.  Picnic  parties 
paddling  down  a  creek  in  a  canoe  when  the  twilight 
shadows  were  gathering  always  sang: 

Homeward  bound,  homeward  bound, 
From  a  foreign  shore; 

and  this  was  also  a  favorite  in  the  West  with  the 
passengers  on  stern-wheel  steamboats.  There  w.as 
another : 

My  boat  is  by  the  shore 

And  my  bark  is  on  the  sea, 
But  before  I  go,  Tom  Moore, 
Here's  a  double  health  to  thee. 

And  this  one,  also. 


O  pilot,  'tis  a  fearful  night, 
There's  danger  on  the  deep. 


And  this : 


A  life  on  the  ocean  wave 

And  a  home  on  the  rolling  deep, 
Where  the  scattered  waters  rave 

And  the  winds  their  revels  keep! 
308 


ABOUT    ALL    KINDS    OF    SHIPS 

And  this : 


And  this : 


A  wet  sheet  and  a  flowing  sea, 
And  a  wind  that  follows  fair. 


My  foot  is  on  my  gallant  deck 
Once  more  the  rover  is  free! 


And  the  " Larboard  Watch" — the  person  referred 
to  below  is  at  the  masthead,  or  somewhere  up  there : 

Oh,  who  can  tell  what  joy  he  feels, 
As  o'er  the  foam  his  vessel  reels, 
And  his  tired  eyelids  slumb'ring  fall, 
He  rouses  at  the  welcome  call 

Of  "Larboard  watch— ahoy!" 

Yes,  and  there  was  forever  and  always  some 
jackass- voiced  person  braying  out: 

Rocked  in  the  cradle  of  the  deep, 
I  lay  me  down  in  peace  to  sleep! 

Other  favorites  had  these  suggestive  titles:  "The 
Storm  at  Sea";  "The  Bird  at  Sea";  "The  Sailor 
Boy's  Dream";  "The  Captive  Pirate's  Lament"; 
' '  We  are  far  from  Home  on  the  Stormy  Main ' ' — and 
so  on,  and  so  on,  the  list  is  endless.  Everybody  on 
a  farm  lived  chiefly  amid  the  dangers  of  the  deep  in 
those  days,  in  fancy. 

But  all  that  is  gone  now.  Not  a  vestige  of  it  is 
left.  The  iron-clad,  with  her  unsentimental  aspect 
and  frigid  attention  to  business,  banished  romance 
from  the  war  marine,  and  the  unsentimental  steamer 
has  banished  it  from  the  commercial  marine.  The 

309 


MARK     TWAIN 

dangers  and  uncertainties  which  made  sea  life 
romantic  have  disappeared  and  carried  the  poetic 
element  along  with  them.  In  our  day  the  passengers 
never  sing  sea-songs  on  board  a  ship,  and  the  band 
never  plays  them.  Pathetic  songs  about  the  wan 
derer  in  strange  lands  far  from  home,  once  so  popular 
and  contributing  such  fire  and  color  to  the  imagina 
tion  by  reason  of  the  rarity  of  that  kind  of  wanderer, 
have  lost  their  charm  and  fallen  silent,  because  every 
body  is  a  wanderer  in  the  far  lands  now,  and  the 
interest  in  that  detail  is  dead.  Nobody  is  worried 
about  the  wanderer;  there  are  no  perils  of  the  sea 
for  him,  there  are  no  uncertainties.  He  is  safer  in 
the  ship  than  he  would  probably  be  at  home,  for 
there  he  is  always  liable  to  have  to  attend  some 
friend's  funeral  and  stand  over  the  grave  in  the  sleet, 
bareheaded — and  that  means  pneumonia  for  him, 
if  he  gets  his  deserts;  and  the  uncertainties  of  his 
voyage  are  reduced  to  whether  he  will  arrive  on  the 
other  side  in  the  appointed  afternoon,  or  have  to 
wait  till  morning. 

The  first  ship  I  was  ever  in  was  a  sailing-vessel. 
She  was  twenty-eight  days  going  from  San  Francisco 
to  the  Sandwich  Islands.  But  the  main  reason  for 
this  particularly  slow  passage  was  that  she  got 
becalmed  and  lay  in  one  spot  fourteen  days  in  the 
center  of  the  Pacific  two  thousand  miles  from  land. 
I  hear  no  sea-songs  in  this  present  vessel,  but  I 
heard  the  entire  lay-out  in  that  one.  There  were  a 
dozen  young  people — they  are  pretty  old  now,  I 
reckon — and  they  used  to  group  themselves  on  the 
stern,  in  the  starlight  or  the  moonlight,  every  eve- 

310 


ABOUT    ALL    KINDS    OF    SHIPS 

ning,  and  sing  sea-songs  till  after  midnight,  in  that  hot, 
silent,  motionless  calm.  They  had  no  sense  of  humor, 
and  they  always  sang  " Homeward  Bound,"  without 
reflecting  that  that  was  practically  ridiculous,  since 
they  were  standing  still  and  not  proceeding  in  any 
direction  at  all;  and  they  often  followed  that  song 
with  '"Are  we  almost  there,  are  we  almost  there?' 
said  the  dying  girl  as  she  drew  near  home." 

It  was  a  very  pleasant  company  of  young  people, 
and  I  wonder  where  they  are  now.  Gone;  oh,  none 
knows  whither ;  and  the  bloom  and  grace  and  beauty 
of  their  youth,  where  is  that?  Among  them  was  a 
liar;  all  tried  to  reform  him,  but  none  could  do  it. 
And  so,  gradually,  he  was  left  to  himself;  none  of  us 
would  associate  with  him.  Many  a  time  since  I  have 
seen  in  fancy  that  forsaken  figure,  leaning  forlorn 
against  the  taffrail,  and  have  reflected  that  perhaps 
if  we  had  tried  harder,  and  been  more  patient,  we 
might  have  won  him  from  his  fault  and  persuaded 
him  to  relinquish  it.  But  it  is  hard  to  tell;  with  him 
the  vice  was  extreme,  and  was  probably  incurable. 
I  like  to  think — and,  indeed,  I  do  think — that  I  did 
the  best  that  in  me  lay  to  lead  him  to  higher  and 
better  ways. 

There  was  a  singular  circumstance.  The  ship  lay 
becalmed  that  entire  fortnight  in  exactly  the  same 
spot.  Then  a  handsome  breeze  came  fanning  over 
the  sea,  and  we  spread  our  white  wings  for  flight. 
But  the  vessel  did  not  budge.  The  sails  bellied  out, 
the  gale  strained  at  the  ropes,  but  the  vessel  moved 
not  a  hair's-breadth  from  her  place.  The  captain 
was  surprised.  It  was  some  hours  before  we  found 
21 


MARK   TWAIN 

out  what  the  cause  of  the  detention  was.  It  was 
barnacles.  They  collect  very  fast  in  that  part  of  the 
Pacific.  They  had  fastened  themselves  to  the  ship's 
bottom;  then  others  had  fastened  themselves  to  the 
first  bunch,  others  to  these,  and  so  on,  down  and 
down  and  down,  and  the  last  bunch  had  glued  the 
column  hard  and  fast  to  the  bottom  of  the  sea,  which 
is  five  miles  deep  at  that  point.  So  the  ship  was 
simply  become  the  handle  of  a  walking-cane  five 
miles  long — yes,  no  more  moveable  by  wind  and 
sail  than  a  continent  is.  It  was  regarded  by  every 
one  as  remarkable. 

Well,  the  next  week — however,  Sandy  Hook  is  in 
sight. 


FROM    THE    "LONDON   TIMES 
OF   1904 


Correspondence  of  the  "London  Times" 

CHICAGO,  April  i,  1904. 

1  RESUME  by  cable  -  telephone  where  I  left  off 
yesterday.  For  many  hours,  now,  this  vast  city 
—along  with  the  rest  of  the  globe,  of  course — has 
talked  of  nothing  but  the  extraordinary  episode 
mentioned  in  my  last  report.  In  accordance  with 
your  instructions,  I  will  now  trace  the  romance  from 
its  beginnings  down  to  the  culmination  of  yesterday 
—or  to-day;  call  it  which  you  like.  By  an  odd 
chance,  I  was  a  personal  actor  in  a  part  of  this 
drama  myself.  The  opening  scene  plays  in  Vienna. 
Date,  one  o'clock  in  the  morning,  March  31,  189-8. 
I  had  spent  the  evening  at  a  social  entertainment. 
About  midnight  I  went  away,  in  company  with 
the  military  attaches  of  the  British,  Italian,  and 
American  embassies,  to  finish  witfc  a  late  smoke. 
This  function  had  been  appointed  to  take  place  in 
the  house  of  Lieutenant  Hillyer,  the  third  attache 
mentioned  in  the  above  list.  When  we  arrived  there 
we  found  several  visitors  in  the  room:  young 

21  313 


MARK    TWAIN 

Szczepanik;1  Mr.  K.,  his  financial  backer;  Mr.  W., 
the  latter's  secretary;  and  Lieutenant  Clayton  of  the 
United  States  army.  War  was  at  that  time  threat 
ening  between  Spain  and  our  country,  and  Lieu 
tenant  Clayton  had  been  sent  to  Europe  on  military 
business.  I  was  well  acquainted  with  young  Szcze 
panik  and  his  two  friends,  and  I  knew  Mr.  Clayton 
slightly.  I  had  met  him  at  West  Point  years  before, 
when  he  was  a  cadet.  It  was  when  General  Merritt 
was  superintendent.  He  had  the  reputation  of  being 
an  able  officer,  and  also  of  being  quick-tempered  and 
plain-spoken. 

This  smoking-party  had  been  gathered  together 
partly  for  business.  This  business  was  to  consider 
the  availability  of  the  telelectroscope  for  military 
service.  It  sounds  oddly  enough  now,  but  it  is 
nevertheless  true  that  at  that  time  the  invention 
was  not  taken  seriously  by  any  one  except  its  in 
ventor.  Even  his  financial  supporter  regarded  it 
merely  as  a  curious  and  interesting  toy.  Indeed,  he 
was  so  convinced  of  this  that  he  had  actually  post 
poned  its  use  by  the  general  world  to  the  end  of  the 
dying  century  by  granting  a  two  years'  exclusive 
lease  of  it  to  a  syndicate,  whose  intent  was  to  exploit 
it  at  the  Paris  World's  Fair. 

When  we  entered  the  smoking-room  we  found 
Lieutenant  Clayton  and  Szczepanik  engaged  in  a 
warm  talk  over  the  telelectroscope  in  the  German 
tongue.  Clayton  was  saying: 

"Well,  you  know  my  opinion  of  it,  anyway !"  and  he 
brought  his  fist  down  with  emphasis  upon  the  table. 

Pronounced  (approximately)  Zepawnik. 
314 


FROM    THE    "LONDON    TIMES" 

"And  I  do  not  value  it,"  retorted  the  young  in 
ventor,  with  provoking  calmness  of  tone  and  manner. 

Clayton  turned  to  Mr.  K.,  and  said: 

"I  cannot  see  why  you  are  wasting  money  on  this 
toy.  In  my  opinion,  the  day  will  never  come  when 
it  will  do  a  farthing's  worth  of  real  service  for  any 
human  being." 

"That  may  be;  yes,  that  may  be;  still,  I  have  put 
the  money  in  it,  and  am  content.  I  think,  myself, 
that  it  is  only  a  toy ;  but  Szczepanik  claims  more  for 
it,  and  I  know  him  well  enough  to  believe  that  he 
can  see  farther  than  I  can — either  with  his  telelectro- 
scope  or  without  it." 

The  soft  answer  did  not  cool  Clayton  down;  it 
seemed  only  to  irritate  him  the  more;  and  he  re 
peated  and  emphasized  his  conviction  that  the  inven 
tion  would  never  do  any  man  a  farthing's  worth 
of  real  service.  He  even  made  it  a  "brass  "  farthing, 
this  time.  Then  he  laid  an  English  farthing  on  the 
table,  and  added : 

"Take  that,  Mr.  K.,  and  put  it  away;  and  if  ever 
the  telelectroscope  does  any  man  an  actual  service, 
— mind,  a  real  service — please  mail  it  to  me  as  a 
reminder,  and  I  will  take  back  what  I  have  been 
saying.  Will  you?" 

"I  will";  and  Mr.  K.  put  the  coin  in  his  pocket. 

Mr.  Clayton  now  turned  toward  Szczepanik,  and 
began  with  a  taunt — a  taunt  which  did  not  reach  a 
finish ;  Szczepanik  interrupted  it  with  a  hardy  retort, 
and  followed  this  with  a  blow.  There  was  a  brisk 
fight  for  a  moment  or  two;  then  the  attaches  sepa 
rated  the  men. 


MARK    TWAIN 

The  scene  now  changes  to  Chicago.  Time,  the 
autumn  of  1901.  As  soon  as  the  Paris  contract 
released  the  telelectroscope,  it  was  delivered  to 
public  use,  and  was  soon  connected  with  the  tele 
phonic  systems  of  the  whole  world.  The  improved 
" limitless-distance"  telephone  was  presently  intro 
duced,  and  the  daily  doings  of  the  globe  made  visi 
ble  to  everybody,  and  audibly  discussable,  too,  by 
witnesses  separated  by  any  number  of  leagues. 

By  and  by  Szczepanik  arrived  in  Chicago.  Clay 
ton  (now  captain)  was  serving  in  that  military  de 
partment  at  the  time.  The  two  men  resumed  the 
Viennese  quarrel  of  1898.  On  three  different  occa 
sions  they  quarreled,  and  were  separated  by  wit 
nesses.  Then  came  an  interval  of  two  months, 
during  which  time  Szczepanik  was  not  seen  by  any 
of  his  friends,  and  it  was  at  first  supposed  that  he 
had  gone  off  on  a  sight-seeing  tour  and  would  soon 
be  heard  from.  But  no;  no  word  came  from  him. 
Then  it  was  supposed  that  he  had  returned  to 
Europe.  Still,  time  drifted  on,  and  he  was  not 
heard  from.  Nobody  was  troubled,  for  he  was  like 
most  inventors  and  other  kinds  of  poets,  and  went 
and  came  in  a  capricious  way,  and  often  without 
notice. 

Now  comes  the  tragedy.  On  the  29th  of  Decem 
ber,  in  a  dark  and  unused  compartment  of  the  cellar 
under  Captain  Clayton's  house,  a  corpse  was  dis 
covered  by  one  of  Clayton's  maid-servants.  It  was 
easily  identified  as  Szczepanik's.  The  man  had  died 
by  violence.  Clayton  was  arrested,  indicted,  and 
brought  to  trial,  charged  with  this  murder,  The 

316 


FROM    THE    "LONDON    TIMES'* 

evidence  against  him  was  perfect  in  every  detail,  and 
absolutely  unassailable.  Clayton  admitted  this  him 
self.  He  said  that  a  reasonable  man  could  not 
examine  this  testimony  with  a  dispassionate  mind 
and  not  be  convinced  by  it;  yet  the  man  would  be 
in  error,  nevertheless.  Clayton  swore  that  he  did 
not  commit  the  murder,  and  that  he  had  had  noth 
ing  to  do  with  it. 

As  your  readers  will  remember,  he  was  con 
demned  to  death.  He  had  numerous  and  powerful 
friends,  and  they  worked  hard  to  save  him,  for  none 
of  them  doubted  the  truth  of  his  assertion.  I  did 
what  little  I  could  to  help,  for  I  had  long  since 
become  a  close  friend  of  his,  and  thought  I  knew  that 
it  was  not  in  his  character  to  inveigle  an  enemy  into 
a  corner  and  assassinate  him.  During  1902  and  1903 
he  was  several  times  reprieved  by  the  governor;  he 
was  reprieved  once  more  in  the  beginning  of  the 
present  year,  and  the  execution-day  postponed  to 
March  3ist. 

The  governor's  situation  has  been  embarrassing, 
from  the  day  of  the  condemnation,  because  of  the 
fact  that  Clayton's  wife  is  the  governor's  niece.  The 
marriage  took  place  in  1899,  when  Clayton  was 
thirty-four  and  the  girl  twenty-three,  and  has  been 
a  happy  one.  There  is  one  child,  a  little  girl  three 
years  old.  Pity  for  the  poor  mother  and  child  kept 
the  mouths  of  grumblers  closed  at  first ;  but  this  could 
not  last  forever — for  in  America  politics  has  a  hand 
in  everything — and  by  and  by  the  governor's  polit 
ical  opponents  began  to  call  attention  to  his  delay 
in  allowing  the  law  to  take  its  course.  These  hints 

3*7 


MARK    TWAIN 

have  grown  more  and  more  frequent  of  late,  and  more 
and  more  pronounced.  As  a  natural  result,  his 
own  party  grew  nervous.  Its  leaders  began  to  visit 
Springfield  and  hold  long  private  conferences  with 
him.  He  was  now  between  two  fires.  On  the  one 
hand,  his  niece  was  imploring  him  to  pardon  her 
husband ;  on  the  other  were  the  leaders,  insisting  that 
he  stand  to  his  plain  duty  as  chief  magistrate  of  the 
State,  and  place  no  further  bar  to  Clayton's  exe 
cution.  Duty  won  in  the  struggle,  and  the  governor 
gave  his  word  that  he  would  not  again  respite  the 
condemned  man.  This  was  two  weeks  ago.  Mrs. 
Clayton  now  said : 

"Now  that  you  have  given  your  word,  my  last 
hope  is  gone,  for  I  know  you  will  never  go  back 
from  it.  But  you  have  done  the  best  you  could  for 
John,  and  I  have  no  reproaches  for  you.  You  love 
him,  and  you  love  me,  and  we  both  know  that  if 
you  could  honorably  save  him,  you  would  do  it.  I 
will  go  to  him  now,  and  be  what  help  I  can  to  him, 
and  get  what  comfort  I  may  out  of  the  few  days  that 
are  left  to  us  before  the  night  comes  which  will  have 
no  end  for  me  in  life.  You  will  be  with  me  that  day  ? 
You  will  not  let  me  bear  it  alone?" 

"I  will  take  you  to  him  myself,  poor  child,  and 
I  will  be  near  you  to  the  last." 

By  the  governor's  command,  Clayton  was  now 
allowed  every  indulgence  he  might  ask  for  which 
could  interest  his  mind  and  soften  the  hardships  of 
his  imprisonment.  His  wife  and  child  spent  the 
days  with  him;  I  was  his  companion  by  night.  He 
was  removed  from  the  narrow  cell  which  he  had 


FROM    THE    "LONDON    TIMES" 

occupied  during  such  a  dreary  stretch  of  time,  and 
given  the  chief  warden's  room  and  comfortable 
quarters.  His  mind  was  always  busy  with  the 
catastrophe  of  his  life,  and  with  the  slaughtered 
inventor,  and  he  now  took  the  fancy  that  he  would 
like  to  have  the  telelectroscope  and  divert  his  mind 
with  it.  He  had  his  wish.  The  connection  was 
made  with  the  international  telephone-station,  and 
day  by  day,  and  night  by  night,  he  called  up  one 
corner  of  the  globe  after  another,  and  looked  upon 
its  life,  and  studied  its  strange  sights,  and  spoke 
with  its  people,  and  realized  that  by  grace  of  this 
marvelous  instrument  he  was  almost  as  free  as  the 
birds  of  the  air,  although  a  prisoner  under  locks  and 
bars.  He  seldom  spoke,  and  I  never  interrupted 
him  when  he  was  absorbed  in  this  amusement. 
I  sat  in  his  parlor  and  read  and  smoked,  and  the 
nights  were  very  quiet  and  reposefully  sociable, 
and  I  found  them  pleasant.  Now  and  then  I  would 
hear  him  say,  "Give  me  Yedo";  next,  "Give  me 
Hong-Kong";  next,  "Give  me  Melbourne."  And  I 
smoked  on,  and  read  in  comfort,  while  he  wandered 
about  the  remote  under- world,  where  the  sun  was 
shining  in  the  sky,  and  the  people  were  at  their  daily 
work.  Sometimes  the  talk  that  came  from  those  far 
regions  through  the  microphone  attachment  inter 
ested  me,  and  I  listened. 

Yesterday — I  keep  calling  it  yesterday,  which  is 
quite  natural,  for  certain  reasons — the  instrument 
remained  unused,  and  that,  also,  was  natural,  for  it 
was  the  eve  of  the  execution-day.  It  was  spent  in 
tears  and  lamentations  and  farewells.  The  governor 


MARK    TWAIN 

and  the  wife  and  child  remained  until  a  quarter  past 
eleven  at  night,  and  the  scenes  I  witnessed  were 
pitiful  to  see.  The  execution  was  to  take  place  at 
four  in  the  morning.  A  little  after  eleven  a  sound 
of  hammering  broke  out  upon  the  still  night,  and 
there  was  a  glare  of  light,  and  the  child  cried  out 
"What  is  that,  papa?"  and  ran  to  the  window  be 
fore  she  could  be  stopped,  and  clapped  her  small 
hands,  and  said:  "Oh,  come  and  see,  mamma — such 
a  pretty  thing  they  are  making!"  The  mother 
knew — and  fainted.  It  was  the  gallows! 

She  was  carried  away  to  her  lodging,  poor  wom 
an,  and  Clayton  and  I  were  alone — alone,  and 
thinking,  brooding,  dreaming.  We  might  have  been 
statues,  we  sat  so  motionless  and  still.  It  was  a 
wild  night,  for  winter  was  come  again  for  a  moment, 
after  the  habit  of  this  region  in  the  early  spring. 
The  sky  was  starless  and  black,  and  a  strong  wind 
was  blowing  from  the  lake.  The  silence  in  the  room 
was  so  deep  that  all  outside  sounds  seemed  exag 
gerated  by  contrast  with  it.  These  sounds  were 
fitting  ones ;  they  harmonized  with  the  situation  and 
the  conditions:  the  boom  and  thunder  of  sudden 
storm-gusts  among  the  roofs  and  chimneys,  then  the 
dying  down  into  moanings  and  wailings  about  the 
eaves  and  angles;  now  and  then  a  gnashing  and 
lashing  rush  of  sleet  along  the  window-panes;  and 
always  the  muffled  and  uncanny  hammering  of  the 
gallows-builders  in  the  courtyard.  After  an  age  of 
this,  another  sound — far  off,  and  coming  smothered 
and  faint  through  the  riot  of  the  tempest — a  bell 
tolling  twelve!  Another  age,  and  it  tolled  again. 

$20 


FROM    THE    "LONDON    TIMES'' 

By  and  by,  again.  A  dreary,  long  interval  after 
this,  then  the  spectral  sound  floated  to  us  once  more 
— one,  two,  three;  and  this  time  we  caught  our 
breath:  sixty  minutes  of  life  left! 

Clayton  rose,  and  stood  by  the  window,  and 
looked  up  into  the  black  sky,  and  listened  to  the 
thrashing  sleet  and  the  piping  wind;  then  he  said: 
"That  a  dying  man's  last  of  earth  should  be — this!" 
After  a  little  he  said:  "I  must  see  the  sun  again— 
the  sun!"  and  the  next  moment  he  was  feverishly 
calling:  "China!  Give  me  China — Peking!" 

I  was  strangely  stirred,  and  said  to  myself:  "To 
think  that  it  is  a  mere  human  being  who  does  this 
unimaginable  miracle — turns  winter  into  summer, 
night  into  day,  storm  into  calm,  gives  the  freedom 
of  the  great  globe  to  a  prisoner  in  his  cell,  and  the 
sun  in  his  naked  splendor  to  a  man  dying  in  Egyp 
tian  darkness'" 

I  was  listening. 

"What  light!  what  brilliancy!  what  radiance! .  .  . 
This  is  Peking?" 

"Yes." 

"The  time?" 

"Mid-afternoon." 

"What  is  the  great  crowd  for,  and  in  such  gor 
geous  costumes?  What  masses  and  masses  of  rich 
color  and  barbaric  magnificence!  And  how  they 
flash  and  glow  and  burn  in  the  flooding  sunlight! 
What  is  the  occasion  of  it  all?" 

"The  coronation  of  our  new  emperor — the  Czar." 

"But  I  thought  that  that  was  to  take  place 
yesterday." 


MARK    TWAIN 

"This  is  yesterday — to  you." 

"Certainly  it  is.  But  my  mind  is  confused,  these 
days;  there  are  reasons  for  it.  .  .Is  this  the  be 
ginning  of  the  procession?" 

"Oh,  no,  it  began  to  move  an  hour  ago." 

"Is  there  much  more  of  it  still  to  come?" 

"Two  hours  of  it.     Why  do  you  sigh?" 

"Because  I  should  like  to  see  it  all." 

"And  why  can't  you?" 

"I  have  to  go — presently." 

"You  have  an  engagement?" 

After  a  pause,  softly:  "Yes."  After  another 
pause:  "Who  are  these  in  the  splendid  pavilion?" 

"The  imperial  family,  and  visiting  royalties  from 
here  and  there  and  yonder  in  the  earth." 

"And  who  are  those  in  the  adjoining  pavilions  to 
the  right  and  left?" 

"Ambassadors  and  their  families  and  suites  to  the 
right;  unofficial  foreigners  to  the  left." 

"If  you  will  be  so  good,  I — " 

Boom!  That  distant  bell  again,  tolling  the  half- 
hour  faintly  through  the  tempest  of  wind  and  sleet. 
The  door  opened,  and  the  governor  and  the  mother 
and  child  entered — the  woman  in  widow's  weeds! 
She  fell  upon  her  husband's  breast  in  a  passion  of 
sobs,  and  I — I  could  not  stay;  I  could  not  bear  it. 
I  went  into  the  bedchamber,  and  closed  the  door. 
I  sat  there  waiting — waiting — waiting,  and  listen 
ing  to  the  rattling  sashes  and  the  blustering  of  the 
storm.  After  what  seemed  a  long,  long  time,  I 
heard  a  rustle  and  movement  in  the  parlor,  and 
knew  that  the  clergyman  and  the  sheriff  and  the 

322 


FROM    THE   "LONDON    TIMES" 

guard  were  come.  There  was  some  low-voiced 
talking;  then  a  hush;  then  a  prayer,  with  a  sound 
of  sobbing;  presently,  footfalls — the  departure  for 
the  gallows;  then  the  child's  happy  voice:  " Don't 
cry  now,  mamma,  when  we've  got  papa  again,  and 
taking  him  home." 

The  door  closed ;  they  were  gone.  I  was  ashamed : 
I  was  the  only  friend  of  the  dying  man  that  had  no 
spirit,  no  courage.  I  stepped  into  the  room,  and 
said  I  would  be  a  man  and  would  follow.  But  we 
are  made  as  we  are  made,  and  we  cannot  help  it.  I 
did  not  go. 

I  fidgeted  about  the  room  nervously,  and  presently 
went  to  the  window,  and  softly  raised  it — drawn 
by  that  dread  fascination  which  the  terrible  and  the 
awful  exert — and  looked  down  upon  the  courtyard. 
By  the  garish  light  of  the  electric  lamps  I  saw  the 
little  group  of  privileged  witnesses,  the  wife  crying 
on  her  uncle's  breast,  the  condemned  man  standing 
on  the  scaffold  with  the  halter  around  his  neck,  his 
arms  strapped  to  his  body,  the  black  cap  on  his 
head,  the  sheriff  at  his  side  with  his  hand  on  the 
drop,  the  clergyman  in  front  of  him  with  bare  head 
and  his  book  in  his  hand. 

"I  am  the  resurrection  and  the  life — " 

I  turned  away.  I  could  not  listen;  I  could  not 
look.  I  did  not  know  whither  to  go  or  what  to  do. 
Mechanically,  and  without  knowing  it,  I  put  my  eye 
to  that  strange  instrument,  and  there  was  Peking 
and  the  Czar's  procession!  The  next  moment  I  was 
leaning  out  of  the  window,  gasping,  suffocating^ 
trying  to  speak,  but  dumb  from  the  very  imminence 

323 


MARK   TWAIN 

of  the  necessity  of  speaking.  The  preacher  could 
speak,  but  I,  who  had  such  need  of  words — 

"And  may  God  have  mercy  upon  your  soul.    Amen. ' J 

The  sheriff  drew  down  the  black  cap,  and  laid  his 
hand  upon  the  lever.  I  got  my  voice. 

"Stop,  for  God's  sake!  The  man  is  innocent. 
Come  here  and  see  Szczepanik  face  to  face!" 

Hardly  three  minutes  later  the  governor  had  my 
place  at  the  window,  and  was  saying: 

"Strike  off  his  bonds  and  set  him  free!" 

Three  minutes  later  all  were  in  the  parlor  again. 
The  reader  will  imagine  the  scene;  I  have  no  need 
to  describe  it.  It  was  a  sort  of  mad  orgy  of  joy. 

A  messenger  carried  word  to  Szczepanik  in  the 
pavilion,  and  one  could  see  the  distressed  amaze 
ment  dawn  in  his  face  as  he  listened  to  the  tale. 
Then  he  came  to  his  end  of  the  line,  and  talked  with 
Clayton  and  the  governor  and  the  others;  and  the 
wife  poured  out  her  gratitude  upon  him  for  saving 
her  husband's  life,  and  in  her  deep  thankfulness  she 
kissed  him  at  twelve  thousand  miles'  range. 

The  telelectrophonoscopes  of  the  globe  were  put  to 
service  now,  and  for  many  hours  the  kings  and 
queens  of  many  realms  (with  here  and  there  a  re 
porter)  talked  with  Szczepanik,  and  praised  him; 
and  the  few  scientific  societies  which  had  not  already 
made  him  an  honorary  member  conferred  that  grace 
upon  him. 

How  had  he  come  to  disappear  from  among  us? 
It  was  easily  explained.  He  had  not  grown  used  to 
being  a  world-famous  person,  and  had  been  forced 
to  break  away  from  the  lionizing  that  was  robbing 

324 


FROM    THE    "LONDON    TIMES0 

him  of  all  privacy  and  repose.  So  he  grew  a  beard, 
put  on  colored  glasses,  disguised  himself  a  little  in 
other  ways,  then  took  a  fictitious  name,  and  went 
off  to  wander  about  the  earth  in  peace. 

Such  is  the  tale  of  the  drama  which  began  with 
an  inconsequential  quarrel  in  Vienna  in  the  spring 
of  1898,  and  came  near  ending  as  a  tragedy  in  the 
spring  of  1904. 

MARK  TWAIN. 

II 

Correspondence  of  the  "London  Times" 

CHICAGO,  April  5,  1904. 

TO-DAY,  by  a  clipper  of  the  Electric  Line,  and 
the  latter's  Electric  Railway  connections,  ar 
rived  an  envelope  from  Vienna,  for  Captain  Clayton, 
containing  an  English  farthing.  The  receiver  of  it 
was  a  good  deal  moved.  He  called  up  Vienna,  and 
stood  face  to  face  with  Mr.  K.,  and  said: 

"I  do  not  need  to  say  anything;  you  can  see  it 
all  in  my  face.  My  wife  has  the  farthing.  Do  not 
be  afraid — she  will  not  throw  it  away."  M.  T. 

Ill 

\ 

Correspondence  oj  the  "London  Times" 

CHICAGO,  April  23,  1904. 

NOW  that  the  after  developments  of  the  Clayton 
case   have   run  their   course   and  reached   a 
finish,   I  will  sum  them  up.     Clayton's  romantic 
escape  from  a  shameful  death  steeped  all  this  region 

325 


MARK    TWAIN 

in  an  enchantment  of  wonder  and  joy — during  the 
proverbial  nine  days.  Then  the  sobering  process 
followed,  and  men  began  to  take  thought,  and  to 
say:  "But  a  man  was  killed,  and  Clayton  killed  him." 
Others  replied:  "That  is  true:  we  have  been  over 
looking  that  important  detail;  we  have  been  led 
away  by  excitement." 

The  feeling  soon  became  general  that  Clayton 
ought  to  be  tried  again.  Measures  were  taken 
accordingly,  and  the  proper  representations  con 
veyed  to  Washington;  for  in  America,  under  the  new 
paragraph  added  to  the  Constitution  in  1899,  second 
trials  are  not  state  affairs,  but  national,  and  must 
be  tried  by  the  most  august  body  in  the  land — the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States.  The  justices 
were,  therefore,  summoned  to  sit  in  Chicago.  The 
session  was  held  day  before  yesterday,  and  was 
opened  with  the  usual  impressive  formalities,  the 
nine  judges  appearing  in  their  black  robes,  and  the 
new  chief  justice  (Lemaitre)  presiding.  In  opening 
the  case,  the  chief  justice  said: 

"It  is  my  opinion  that  this  matter  is  quite  simple. 
The  prisoner  at  the  bar  was  charged  with  murdering 
the  man  Szczepanik;  he  was  tried  for  murdering  the 
man  Szczepanik;  he  was  fairly  tried,  and  justly  con 
demned  and  sentenced  to  death  for  murdering  the 
man  Szczepanik.  It  turns  out  that  the  man  Szcze 
panik  was  not  murdered  at  all.  By  the  decision 
of  the  French  courts  in  the  Dreyfus  matter,  it  is 
established  beyond  cavil  or  question  that  the  de 
cisions  of  courts  are  permanent  and  cannot  be  re 
vised.  We  are  obliged  to  respect  and  adopt  this 

326 


FROM    THE    "LONDON    TIMES" 

precedent.  It  is  upon  precedents  that  the  enduring 
edifice  of  jurisprudence  is  reared.  The  prisoner  at 
the  bar  has  been  fairly  and  righteously  condemned 
to  death  for  the  murder  of  the  man  Szczepanik,  and, 
in  my  opinion,  there  is  but  one  course  to  pursue  in 
the  matter:  he  must  be  hanged." 

Mr.  Justice  Crawford  said : 

"But,  your  Excellency,  he  was  pardoned  on  the 
scaffold  for  that." 

"The  pardon  is  not  valid,  and  cannot  stand,  be 
cause  he  was  pardoned  for  killing  a  man  whom  he 
had  not  killed.  A  man  cannot  be  pardoned  for  a 
crime  which  he  has  not  committed;  it  would  be  an 
absurdity." 

"But,  your  Excellency,  he  did  kill  a  man." 

"That  is  an  extraneous  detail;  we  have  nothing 
to  do  with  it.  The  court  cannot  take  up  this  crime 
until  the  prisoner  has  expiated  the  other  one." 

Mr.  Justice  Halleck  said: 

"If  we  order  his  execution,  your  Excellency,  we 
shall  bring  about  a  miscarriage  of  justice ;  for  the 
governor  will  pardon  him  again." 

"He  will  not  have  the  pardon.  He  cannot  pardon 
a  man  for  a  crime  which  he  has  not  committed.  As 
I  observed  before,  it  would  be  an  absurdity." 

After  a  consultation,  Mr.  Justice  Wadsworth  said : 

"Several  of  us  have  arrived  at  the  conclusion, 
your  Excellency,  that  it  would  be  an  error  to  hang 
the  prisoner  for  killing  Szczepanik,  but  only  for 
killing  the  other  man,  since  it  is  proven  that  he  did 
not  kill  Szczepanik." 

"On  the  contrary,  it  is  proven  that  he  did  kill 

w  327 


MARK    TWAIN 

Szczspanik.  By  the  French  precedent,  it  is  plain 
that  we  must  abide  by  the  finding  of  the  court." 

"But  Szczepanik  is  still  alive." 

"So  is  Dreyfus." 

In  the  end  it  was  found  impossible  to  ignore  or 
get  around  the  French  precedent.  There  could  be 
but  one  result:  Clayton  was  delivered  over  to  the 
executioner.  It  made  an  immense  excitement;  the 
state  rose  as  one  man  and  clamored  for  Clayton's 
pardon  and  re-trial.  The  governor  issued  the  par 
don,  but  the  Supreme  Court  was  in  duty  bound 
to  annul  it,  and  did  so,  and  poor  Clayton  was 
hanged  yesterday.  The  city  is  draped  in  black,  and, 
indeed,  the  like  may  be  said  of  the  state.  All 
America  is  vocal  with  scorn  of  "French  justice," 
and  of  the  malignant  little  soldiers  who  invented  it 
and  inflicted  it  upon  the  other  Christian  lands. 


A  MAJESTIC  LITERARY  FOSSIL 

IF  I  were  required  to  guess  offhand,  and  without 
collusion  with  higher  minds,  what  is  the  bottom 
cause  of  the  amazing  material  and  intellectual  ad 
vancement  of  the  last  fifty  years,  I  should  guess  that 
it  was  the  modern-born  and  previously  non-existent 
disposition  on  the  part  of  men  to  believe  that  a  new 
idea  can  have  value.  With  the  long  roll  of  the 
mighty  names  of  history  present  in  our  minds,  we  are 
not  privileged  to  doubt  that  for  the  past  twenty  or 
thirty  centuries  every  conspicuous  civilization  in  the 
world  has  produced  intellects  able  to  invent  and 
create  the  things  which  make  our  day  a  wonder; 
perhaps  we  may  be  justified  in  inferring,  then,  that 
the  reason  they  did  not  do  it  was  that  the  public 
reverence  for  old  ideas  and  hostility  to  new  ones 
alwrays  stood  in  their  way,  and  was  a  wall  they  could 
not  break  down  or  climb  over.  The  prevailing  tone 
of  old  books  regarding  new  ideas  is  one  of  suspicion 
and  uneasiness  at  times,  and  at  other  times  contempt. 
By  contrast,  our  day  is  indifferent  to  old  ideas,  and 
even  considers  that  their  age  makes  their  value 
questionable,  but  jumps  at  a  new  idea  with  enthu 
siasm  and  high  hope — a  hope  which  is  high  because 
it  has  not  been  accustomed  to  being  disappointed. 
I  make  no  guess  as  to  just  when  this  disposition  was 

22  329 


MARK    TWAIN 

born  to  us,  but  it  certainly  is  ours,  was  not  possessed 
by  any  century  before  us,  is  our  peculiar  mark  and 
badge,  and  is  doubtless  the  bottom  reason  why  we 
are  a  race  of  lightning-shod  Mercuries,  and  proud  of 
it — instead  of  being,  like  our  ancestors,  a  race  of 
plodding  crabs,  and  proud  of  that. 

So  recent  is  this  change  from  a  three  or  four  thou 
sand  year  twilight  to  the  flash  and  glare  of  open  day 
that  I  have  walked  in  both,  and  yet  am  not  old. 
Nothing  is  to-day  as  it  was  when  I  was  an  urchin; 
but  when  I  was  an  urchin,  nothing  was  much  different 
from  what  it  had  always  been  in  this  world.  Take 
a  single  detail,  for  example — medicine.  Galen  could 
have  come  into  my  sick-room  at  any  time  during  my 
first  seven  years — I  mean  any  day  when  it  wasn't 
fishing  weather,  and  there  wasn't  any  choice  but 
school  or  sickness — and  he  could  have  sat  down  there 
and  stood  my  doctor's  watch  without  asking  a 
question.  He  would  have  smelt  around  among  the 
wilderness  of  cups  and  bottles  and  vials  on  the 
table  and  the  shelves,  and  missed  not  a  stench  that 
used  to  glad  him  two  thousand  years  before,  nor  dis 
covered  one  that  was  of  a  later  date.  He  would 
have  examined  me,  and  run  across  only  one  dis 
appointment — I  was  already  salivated;  I  would  have 
him  there;  for  I  was  always  salivated,  calomel  was 
so  cheap.  He  would  get  out  his  lancet  then;  but  I 
would  have  him  again;  our  family  doctor  didn't 
allow  blood  to  accumulate  in  the  system.  However, 
he  could  take  dipper  and  ladle,  and  freight  me  up 
with  old  familiar  doses  that  had  come  down  from 
Adam  to  his  time  and  mine;  and  he  could  go  out  with 

330 


A    MAJESTIC    LITERARY    FOSSIL 

a  wheelbarrow  and  gather  weeds  and  offal,  and  build 
some  more,  while  those  others  were  getting  in  their 
work.  And  if  our  reverend  doctor  came  and  found 
him  there,  he  would  be  dumb  with  awe,  and  would 
get  down  and  worship  him.  Whereas  if  Galen  should 
appear  among  us  to-day,  he  could  not  stand  any 
body's  watch;  he  would  inspire  no  awe;  he  would 
be  told  he  was  a  back  number,  and  it  would  surprise 
him  to  see  that  that  fact  counted  against  him,  instead 
of  in  his  favor.  He  wouldn't  know  our  medicines; 
he  wouldn't  know  our  practice;  and  the  first  time 
he  tried  to  introduce  his  own  we  would  hang  him. 

This  introduction  brings  me  to  my  literary  relic. 
It  is  a  Dictionary  of  Medicine,  by  Dr.  James,  of  Lw- 
don,  assisted  by  Mr.  Boswell's  Doctor  Samuel 
Johnson,  and  is  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  old,  it 
having  been  published  at  the  time  of  the  rebellion 
of  '45.  If  it  had  been  sent  against  the  Pretender's 
troops  there  probably  wouldn't  have  been  a  survivor. 
In  1 86 1  this  deadly  book  was  still  working  the 
cemeteries — down  in  Virginia.  For  three  genera 
tions  and  a  half  it  had  been  going  quietly  along, 
enriching  the  earth  with  its  slain.  Up  to  its  last  free 
day  it  was  trusted  and  believed  in,  and  its  devastating 
advice  taken,  as  was  shown  by  notes  inserted  be 
tween  its  leaves.  But  our  troops  captured  it  and 
brought  it  home,  and  it  has  been  out  of  business 
since.  These  remarks  from  its  preface  are  in  the 
true  spirit  of  the  olden  time,  sodden  with  worship  of 
the  old,  disdain  of  the  new: 

If  we  inquire  into  the  Improvements  which  have  been  made 
by  the  Modems,  we  shall  be  forced  to  confess  that  we  have  so 

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MARK    TWAIN 

little  Reason  to  value  ourselves  beyond  the  Antients,  or  to  be 
tempted  to  contemn  them,  that  we  cannot  give  stronger  or  more 
convincing  Proofs  of  our  own  Ignorance,  as  well  as  our  Pride. 

Among  all  the  systematical  Writers,  I  think  there  are  very 
few  who  refuse  the  Preference  to  Hieron,  Fabricius  ab  Aquapen- 
dente,  as  a  Person  of  unquestion'd  Learning  and  Judgment;  and 
yet  is  he  not  asham'd  to  let  his  Readers  know  that  Celsus  among 
the  Latins,  Paulus  Aegineta  among  the  Greeks,  and  Albucasis 
among  the  Arabians,  whom  I  am  unwilling  to  place  among  the 
Moderns,  tho'  he  liv'd  but  six  hundred  Years  since,  are  the 
Triumvirate  to  whom  he  principally  stands  indebted,  for  the 
Assistance  he  had  receiv'd  from  them  in  composing  his  excellent 
Book. 

[In  a  previous  paragraph  are  puffs  of  Galen,  Hippocrates,  and 
other  debris  of  the  Old  Silurian  Period  of  Medicine.]  How 
many  Operations  are  there  now  in  Use  which  were  unknown  to 
the  Antients? 

That  is  true.  The  surest  way  for  a  nation's 
scientific  men  to  prove  that  they  were  proud  and 
ignorant  was  to  claim  to  have  found  out  something 
fresh  in  the  course  of  a  thousand  years  or  so.  Evi 
dently  the  peoples  of  this  book's  day  regarded  them 
selves  as  children,  and  their  remote  ancestors  as  the 
only  grown-up  people  that  had  existed.  Consider 
the  contrast:  without  offense,  without  over-egotism, 
our  own  scientific  men  may  and  do  regard  themselves 
as  grown  people  and  their  grandfathers  as  children. 
The  change  here  presented  is  probably  the  most 
sweeping  that  has  ever  come  over  mankind  in  the 
history  of  the  race.  It  is  the  utter  reversal,  in  a 
couple  of  generations,  of  an  attitude  which  had  been 
maintained  without  challenge  or  interruption  from 
the  earliest  antiquity.  It  amounts  to  creating  man 
over  again  on  a  new  plan;  he  was  a  canal-boat  be 
fore,  he  is  an  ocean  greyhound  to-day.  The  change 


A    MAJESTIC    LITERARY    FOSSIL 

from  reptile  to  bird  was  not  more  tremendous,  and 
it  took  longer. 

It  is  curious.  If  you  read  between  the  lines  what 
this  author  says  about  Brer  Albucasis,  you  detect 
that  in  venturing  to  compliment  him  he  has  to 
whistle  a  little  to  keep  his  courage  up,  because 
Albucasis  "liv'd  but  six  hundred  Years  since,"  and 
therefore  came  so  uncomfortably  near  being  a 
"modern"  that  one  couldn't  respect  him  without 
risk. 

Phlebotomy,  Venesection — terms  to  signify  bleed 
ing — are  not  often  heard  in  our  day,  because  we  have 
ceased  to  believe  that  the  best  way  to  make  a  bank 
or  a  body  healthy  is  to  squander  its  capital;  but  in 
our  author's  time  the  physician  went  around  with  a 
hatful  of  lancets  on  his  person  all  the  time,  and  took 
a  hack  at  every  patient  whom  he  found  still  alive. 
He  robbed  his  man  of  pounds  and  pounds  of  blood 
at  a  single  operation.  The  details  of  this  sort  in 
this  book  make  terrific  reading.  Apparently  even 
the  healthy  did  not  escape,  but  were  bled  twelve 
times  a  year,  on  a  particular  day  of  the  month,  and 
exhaustively  purged  besides.  Here  is  a  specimen 
of  the  vigorous  old-time  practice;  it  occurs  in  our 
author's  adoring  biography  of  a  Doctor  Aretseus,  a 
licensed  assassin  of  Homer's  time,  or  thereabouts: 

In  a  Quinsey  he  used  Venesection,  and  allow'd  the  Blood  to 
flow  till  the  Patient  was  ready  to  faint  away. 

There  is  no  harm  in  trying  to  cure  a  headache — in 
our  day.  You  can't  do  it,  but  you  get  more  or  less 
entertainment  out  of  trying,  and  that  is  something; 

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MARK    TWAIN 

besides,  you  live  to  tell  about  it,  and  that  is  more. 
A  century  or  so  ago  you  could  have  had  the  first  of 
these  features  in  rich  variety,  but  you  might  fail  of 
the  other  once — and  once  would  do.  I  quote: 

As  Dissections  of  Persons  who  have  died  of  severe  Head-achs, 
which  have  been  related  by  Authors,  are  too  numerous  to  be 
inserted  in  this  Place,  we  shall  here  abridge  some  of  the  most 
curious  and  important  Observations  relating  to  this  Subject, 
collected  by  the  celebrated  Bonetus. 

The  celebrated  Bonetus's  "Observation  No.  i" 
seems  to  me  a  sufficient  sample,  all  by  itself,  of  what 
people  used  to  have  to  stand  any  time  between  the 
creation  of  the  world  and  the  birth  of  your  father 
and  mine  when  they  had  the  disastrous  luck  to  get 
a  "Head-ach":  % 

A  certain  Merchant,  about  forty  Years  of  Age,  of  a  Melan 
cholic  Habit,  and  deeply  involved  in  the  Cares  of  the  World, 
was,  during  the  Dog-days,  seiz'd  with  a  violent  pain  of  his 
Head,  which  some  time  after  oblig'd  him  to  keep  his  Bed. 

I,  being  call'd,  order'd  Venesection  in  the  Arms,  the  Applica 
tion  of  Leeches  to  the  Vessels  of  his  Nostrils,  Forehead,  and 
Temples,  as  also  to  those  behind  his  Ears;  I  likewise  prescrib'd 
the  Application  of  Cupping-glasses,  with  Scarification,  to  his 
Back:  But  notwithstanding  these  Precautions,  he  dy'd.  If  any 
Surgeon,  skill'd  in  Arteriotomy,  had  been  present,  I  should  have 
also  order'd  that  Operation. 

I  looked  for  "Arteriotomy"  in  this  same  Diction 
ary,  and  found  this  definition:  "The  opening  of  an 
Artery  with  a  View  of  taking  away  Blood."  Here 
was  a  person  who  was  being  bled  in  the  arms,  fore 
head,  nostrils,  back,  temples,  and  behind  the  ears, 
yet  the  celebrated  Bonetus  was  not  satisfied,  but 
wanted  to  open  an  artery  "with  a  View"  to  insert 


A    MAJESTIC    LITERARY    FOSSIL 

a  pump,  probably.  "  Notwithstanding  these  Pre 
cautions" — he  dy'd.  No  art  of  speech  could  more 
quaintly  convey  this  butcher's  innocent  surprise. 
Now  that  we  know  what  the  celebrated  Bonetus  did 
when  he  wanted  to  relieve  a  Head-ach,  it  is  no  trouble 
to  infer  that  if  he  wanted  to  comfort  a  man  that  had 
a  Stomach-ach  he  disemboweled  him. 

I  have  given  one  "Observation" — a  single  Head- 
ach  case;  but  the  celebrated  Bonetus  follows  it  with 
eleven  more.  Without  enlarging  upon  the  matter, 
I  merely  note  this  coincidence — they  all  "dy'd." 
Not  one  of  these  people  got  well;  yet  this  obtuse 
hyena  sets  down  every  little  gory  detail  of  the  several 
assassinations  as  complacently  as  if  he  imagined  he 
was  doing  a  useful  and  meritorious  work  in  per 
petuating  the  methods  of  his  crimes.  "Observa 
tions,"  indeed!  They  are  confessions. 

According  to  this  book,  "the  Ashes  of  an  Ass's 
hoof  mix'd  with  Woman's  milk  cures  chilblains." 
Length  of  time  required  not  stated.  Another  item: 
"The  constant  Use  of  Milk  is  bad  for  the  Teeth,  and 
causes  them  to  rot,  and  loosens  the  Gums."  Yet  in 
our  day  babies  use  it  constantly  without  hurtful 
results.  This  author  thinks  you  ought  to  wash  out 
your  mouth  with  wine  before  venturing  to  drink 
milk.  Presently,  when  we  come  to  notice  what 
fiendish  decoctions  those  people  introduced  into 
their  stomachs  by  way  of  medicine,  we  shall  won 
der  that  they  could  have  been  afraid  of  milk. 

It  appears  that  they  had  false  teeth  in  those  days. 
They  were  made  of  ivory  sometimes,  sometimes  of 
bone,  and  were  thrust  into  the  natural  sockets,  and 

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MARK    TWAIN 

lashed  to  each  other  and  to  the  neighboring  teeth 
with  wires  or  with  silk  threads.  They  were  not  to 
eat  with,  nor  to  laugh  with,  because  they  dropped 
out  when  not  in  repose.  You  could  smile  with  them, 
but  you  had  to  practise  first,  or  you  would  overdo 
it.  They  were  not  for  business,  but  just  decoration. 
They  filled  the  bill  according  to  their  lights. 

This  author  says  "the  Flesh  of  Swine  nourishes 
above  all  other  eatables."  In  another  place  he 
mentions  a  number  of  things,  and  says  "these  are 
very  easy  to  be  digested;  so  is  Pork."  This  is  prob 
ably  a  lie.  But  he  is  pretty  handy  in  that  line;  and 
when  he  hasn't  anything  of  the  sort  in  stock  himself 
he  gives  some  other  expert  an  opening.  For  in 
stance,  under  the  head  of  "Attractives"  he  intro 
duces  Paracelsus,  who  tells  of  a  nameless  "Specific" 
— quantity  of  it  not  set  down — which  is  able  to 
draw  a  hundred  pounds  of  flesh  to  itself — distance  not 
stated — and  then  proceeds,  ' '  It  happen'd  in  our  own 
Days  that  an  Attractive  of  this  Kind  drew  a  certain 
Man's  Lungs  up  into  his  Mouth,  by  which  he  had 
the  Misfortune  to  be  suffocated."  This  is  more  than 
doubtful.  In  the  first  place,  his  Mouth  couldn't 
accommodate  his  Lungs — in  fact,  his  Hat  couldn't; 
secondly,  his  Heart  being  more  eligibly  Situated,  it 
would  have  got  the  Start  of  his  Lungs,  and,  being  a 
lighter  Body,  it  would  have  Sail'd  in  ahead  and 
Occupied  the  Premises ;  thirdly,  you  will  Take  Notice 
a  Man  with  his  Heart  in  his  Mouth  hasn't  any  Room 
left  for  his  Lungs — he  has  got  all  he  can  Attend  to; 
and  finally,  the  Man  must  have  had  the  Attractive 
in  his  Hat,  and  when  he  saw  what  was  going  to 

336 


A    MAJESTIC    LITERARY    FOSSIL 

Happen  he  would  have  Remov'd  it  and  Sat  Down  on 
it.  Indeed,  he  would;  and  then  how  could  it  Choke 
him  to  Death?  I  don't  believe  the  thing  ever  hap 
pened  at  all. 

Paracelsus  adds  this  effort :  '  *  I  myself  saw  a  Plaister 
which  attracted  as  much  Water  as  was  sufficient  to 
fill  a  Cistern ;  and  by  these  very  Attractives  Branches 
may  be  torn  from  Trees;  and,  which  is  still  more 
surprising,  a  Cow  may  be  carried  up  into  the  Air." 
Paracelsus  is  dead  now ;  he  was  always  straining  him 
self  that  way. 

They  liked  a  touch  of  mystery  along  with  their 
medicine  in  the  olden  time;  and  the  medicine-man 
of  that  day,  like  the  medicine-man  of  our  Indian 
tribes,  did  what  he  could  to  meet  the  requirement: 

Arcanum.  A  Kind  of  Remedy  whose  Manner  of  Preparation, 
or  singular  Efficacy,  is  industriously  concealed,  in  order  to 
enhance  its  Value.  By  the  Chymists  it  is  generally  defined  a 
thing  secret,  incorporeal,  and  immortal,  which  cannot  be  Known 
by  Man,  unless  by  Experience;  for  it  is  the  Virtue  of  every  thing, 
which  operates  a  thousand  times  more  than  the  thing  itself. 

To  me  the  butt  end  of  this  explanation  is  not 
altogether  clear.  A  little  of  what  they  knew  about 
natural  history  in  the  early  times  is  exposed  here 
and  there  in  the  Dictionary. 

The  Spider.  It  is  more  common  than  welcome  in  Houses. 
Both  the  Spider  and  its  Web  are  used  in  Medicine:  The  Spider 
is  said  to  avert  the  Paroxysms  of  Fevers,  if  it  be  apply 'd  to  the 
Pulse  of  the  Wrist,  or  the  Temples;  but  it  is  peculiarly  recom 
mended  against  a  Quartan,  being  enclosed  in  the  Shell  of  a 
Hazlenut. 

Among  approved  Remedies,  I  find  that  the  distilPd  Water  of 
Black  Spiders  is  an  excellent  Cure  for  Wounds,  and  that  this  wait- 
one  of  the  choice  Secrets  of  Sir  Walter  Raleigh. 

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MARK    TWAIN 

The  Spider  which  some  call  the  Catcher,  or  Wolf,  being  beaten 
into  a  Plaister,  then  sew'd  up  in  Linen,  and  apply'd  to  the 
Forehead  or  Temples,  prevents  the  Returns  of  a  Tertian. 

There  is  another  Kind  of  Spider,  which  spins  a  white,  fine, 
and  thick  Web.  One  of  this  Sort,  wrapp'd  in  Leather,  and  hung 
about  the  Arm,  will  avert  the  Fit  of  a  Quartan.  Boil'd  in  Oil  of 
Roses,  and  instilled  into  the  Ears,  it  eases  Pains  in  those  Parts. 
Dioscorides,  Lib.  2,  Cap.  68. 

Thus  we  find  that  Spiders  have  in  all  Ages  been  celebrated 
for  their  febrifuge  Virtues;  and  it  is  worthy  of  Remark,  that  a 
Spider  is  usually  given  to  Monkeys,  and  is  esteem'd  a  sovereign 
Remedy  for  the  Disorders  those  Animals  are  principally  sub 
ject  to. 

Then  follows  a  long  account  of  how  a  dying 
woman,  who  had  suffered  nine  hours  a  day  with 
an  ague  during  eight  weeks,  and  who  had  been  bled 
dry  some  dozens  of  times  meantime  without  apparent 
benefit,  was  at  last  forced  to  swallow  several  wads  of 
"Spiders- web,"  whereupon  she  straightway  mended, 
and  promptly  got  well.  So  the  sage  is  full  of  en 
thusiasm  over  the  spider-webs,  and  mentions  only 
in  the  most  casual  way  the  discontinuance  of  the 
daily  bleedings,  plainly  never  suspecting  that  this 
had  anything  to  do  with  the  cure. 

As  concerning  the  venomous  Nature  of  Spiders,  Scaliger  takes 
notice  of  a  certain  Species  of  them  (which  he  had  forgotten) 
whose  Poison  was  of  so  great  Force  as  to  affect  one  Vinccntinus 
thro'  the  Sole  of  his  Shoe,  by  only  treading  on  it. 

The  sage  takes  that  in  without  a  strain,  but  the 
following  case  was  a  trifle  too  bulky  for  him,  as  his 
comment  reveals: 

In  Gascony,  observes  Scaliger,  there  is  a  very  small  Spider, 
which,  running  over  a  Looking-glass,  will  crack  the  same  by  the 
Force  of  her  Poison.  (A  mere  Fable.} 

338 


A    MAJESTIC    LITERARY    FOSSIL 

But  he  finds  no  fault  with  the  following  facts: 

Remarkable  is  the  Enmity  recorded  between  this  Creature 
and  the  Serpent,  as  also  the  Toad:  Of  the  former  it  is  reported, 
That,  lying  (as  he  thinks  securely)  under  the  Shadow  of  some 
Tree,  the  Spider  lets  herself  down  by  her  Thread,  and,  striking 
her  Proboscis  or  Sting  into  the  Head,  with  that  Force  and 
Efficacy,  injecting  likewise  her  venomous  Juice,  that,  wringing 
himself  about,  he  immediately  grows  giddy,  and  quickly  after 
dies. 

When  the  Toad  is  bit  or  stung  in  Fight  with  this  Creature,  the 
Lizard,  Adder,  or  other  that  is  poisonous,  she  finds  relief  from 
Plantain,  to  which  she  resorts.  In  her  Combat  with  the  Toad, 
the  Spider  useth  the  same  Stratagem  as  with  the  Serpent,  hang 
ing  by  her  own  Thread  from  the  Bough  of  some  Tree,  and 
striking  her  Sting  into  her  enemy's  Head,  upon  which  the  other, 
enraged,  swells  up,  and  sometimes  bursts. 

To  this  Effect  is  the  Relation  of  Erasmus,  which  he  saith  he 
had  from  one  of  the  Spectators,  of  a  Person  lying  along  upon  the 
Floor  of  his  Chamber,  in  the  Summer-time,  to  sleep  in  a  supine 
Posture,  when  a  Toad,  creeping  out  of  some  green  Rushes, 
brought  just  before  in,  to  adorn  the  Chimney,  gets  upon  his 
Face,  and  with  his  Feet  sits  across  his  Lips.  To  force  off  the 
Toad,  says  the  Historian,  would  have  been  accounted  sudden 
Death  to  the  Sleeper;  and  to  leave  her  there,  very  cruel  and 
dangerous;  so  that  upon  Consultation  it  was  concluded  to  find 
out  a  Spider,  which,  together  with  her  Web,  and  the  Window 
she  was  fasten'd  to,  was  brought  carefully,  and  so  contrived  as 
to  be  held  perpendicularly  to  the  Man's  Face;  which  was  no 
sooner  done,  but  the  Spider,  discovering  his  Enemy,  let  himself 
down,  and  struck  in  his  Dart,  afterwards  betaking  himself  up 
again  to  his  Web;  the  Toad  swell'd,  but  as  yet  kept  his  station: 
The  second  Wound  is  given  quickly  after  by  the  Spider,  upon 
which  he  swells  yet  more,  but  remain'd  alive  still. — The  Spider, 
coming  down  again  by  his  Thread,  gives  the  third  Blow;  and  the 
Toad,  taking  off  his  Feet  from  over  the  Man's  Mouth,  fell  off 
dead. 

To  which  the  sage  appends  this  grave  remark, 
"And  so  much  for  the  historical  Part."  Then  he 

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MARK    TWAIN 

passes  on  to  a  consideration  of  ' '  the  Effects  and  Cure 
of  the  Poison." 

One  of  the  most  interesting  things  about  this 
tragedy  is  the  double  sex  of  the  Toad,  and  also  of 
the  Spider. 

Now  the  sage  quotes  from  one  Turner: 

I  remember,  when  a  very  young  Practitioner,  being  sent  for 
to  a  certain  Woman,  whose  Custom  was  usually,  when  she  went 
to  the  Cellar  by  Candlelight,  to  go  also  a  Spider-hunting,  setting 
Fire  to  their  Webs,  and  burning  them  with  the  Flame  of  the 
Candle  still  as  she  pursued  them.  It  happen'd  at  length,  after 
this  Whimsy  had  been  follow'd  a  long  time,  one  of  them  sold 
his  Life  much  dearer  than  those  Hundreds  she  had  destroy 'd; 
for,  lighting  upon  the  melting  Tallow  of  her  Candle,  near  the 
Flame,  and  his  legs  being  entangled  therein,  so  that  he  could 
not  extricate  himself,  the  Flame  or  Heat  coming  on,  he  was 
made  a  Sacrifice  to  his  cruel  Persecutor,  who  delighting  her 
Eyes  with  the  Spectacle,  still  waiting  for  the  Flame  to  take  hold 
of  him,  he  presently  burst  with  a  great  Crack,  and  threw  his 
Liquor,  some  into  her  Eyes,  but  mostly  upon  her  Lips;  by  means 
of  which,  flinging  away  her  Candle,  she  cry'd  out  for  Help, 
as  fansying  herself  kill'd  already  with  the  Poison.  However  in 
the  Night  her  Lips  swell'd  up  excessively,  and  one  of  her  Eyes 
was  much  inflam'd;  also  her  Tongue  and  Gums  were  somewhat 
affected;  and,  whether  from  the  Nausea  excited  by  the  Thoughts 
of  the  Liquor  getting  into  her  Mouth,  or  from  the  poisonous 
Impressions  communicated  by  the  nervous  Fibrillcz  of  those 
Parts  to  those  of  the  Ventricle,  a  continual  Vomiting  attended: 
To  take  off  which,  when  I  was  call'd,  I  order'd  a  Glass  of  mull'd 
Sack,  with  a  Scruple  of  Salt  of  Wormwood,  and  some  hours 
after  a  Theriacal  Bolus,  which  she  flung  up  again.  I  embro 
cated  the  Lips  with  the  Oil  of  Scorpions  mix'd  with  the  Oil  of 
Roses;  and,  in  Consideration  of  the  Ophthalmy,  tho'  I  was  not 
certain  but  the  Heat  of  the  Liquor,  rais'd  by  the  Flame  of  the 
Candle  before  the  Body  of  the  Creature  burst,  might,  as  well  as 
the  Venom,  excite  the  Disturbance,  (altho'  Mr.  Boyle9 s  Case  of 
a  Person  blinded  by  this  Liquor  dropping  from  the  living  Spider, 
makes  the  latter  sufficient;)  yet  observing  the  great  Tumefaction 

340 


A    MAJESTIC    LITERARY    FOSSIL 

of  the  Lips,  together  with  the  other  Symptoms  not  likely  to 
arise  from  simple  Heat,  I  was  inclin'd  to  believe  a  real  Poison 
in  the  Case;  and  therefore  not  daring  to  let  her  Blood  in  the 
Arm  [If  a  man's  throat  were  cut  in  those  old  days,  the  doctor 
would  come  and  bleed  the  other  end  of  him],  I  did,  however, 
with  good  Success,  set  Leeches  to  her  Temples,  which  took  off 
much  of  the  Inflammation;  and  her  Pain  was  likewise  abated, 
by  instilling  into  her  Eyes  a  thin  Mucilage  of  the  Seeds  of 
Quinces  and  white  Poppies  extracted  with  Rose-water;  yet  the 
Swelling  on  the  Lips  increased;  upon  which,  in  the  Night,  she 
wore  a  Cataplasm  prepared  by  boiling  the  Leaves  of  Scordium, 
Rue,  and  Elder-flowers,  and  afterwards  thicken'd  with  the  Meal 
of  Vetches.  In  the  mean  time,  her  Vomiting  having  left  her, 
she  had  given  her,  between  whiles,  a  little  Draught  of  Distill'd 
Water  of  Carduus  Benedictus  and  Scordium,  with  some  of  the 
Theriaca  dissolved;  and  upon  going  off  of  the  Symptoms,  an  old 
Woman  came  luckily  in,  who,  with  Assurance  suitable  to  those 
People,  (whose  Ignorance  and  Poverty  is  their  Safety  and  Pro 
tection,)  took  off  the  Dressings,  promising  to  cure  her  in  two 
Days'  time,  altho'  she  made  it  as  many  Weeks,  yet  had  the 
Reputation  of  the  Cure;  applying  only  Plantain  Leaves  bruis'd 
and  mixed  with  Cobwebs,  dropping  the  Juice  into  her  Eye,  and 
giving  some  Spoonfuls  of  the  same  inwardly,  two  or  three  times 
a  day. 

So  ends  the  wonderful  affair.  Whereupon  the  sage 
gives  Mr.  Turner  the  following  shot — strengthening 
it  with  italics — and  passes  calmly  on : 

1  must  remark  upon  this  History,  that  the  Plantain,  as  a 
Cooler,  was  much  more  likely  to  cure  this  Disorder  than  warmer 
Applications  and  Medicines. 

How  strange  that  narrative  sounds  to-day,  and 
how  grotesque,  when  one  reflects  that  it  was  a  grave 
contribution  to  medical  " science"  by  an  old  and 
reputable  physician!  Here  was  all  this  to-do — two 
weeks  of  it — over  a  woman  who  had  scorched  her 
eye  and  her  lips  with  candle  grease.  The  poor  wench 


MARK    TWAIN 

is  as  elaborately  dosed,  bled,  embrocated,  and  other 
wise  harried  and  bedeviled  as  if  there  had  been 
really  something  the  matter  with  her;  and  when  a 
sensible  old  woman  comes  along  at  last,  and  treats 
the  trivial  case  in  a  sensible  way,  the  educated 
ignoramus  rails  at  her  ignorance,  serenely  uncon 
scious  of  his  own.  It  is  pretty  suggestive  of  the 
former  snail-pace  of  medical  progress  that  the  spider 
retained  his  terrors  during  three  thousand  years,  and 
only  lost  them  within  the  last  thirty  or  forty. 

Observe  what  imagination  can  do.  "This  same 
young  Woman"  used  to  be  so  affected  by  the  strong 
(imaginary)  smell  which  emanated  from  the  burning 
spiders  that  "the  Objects  about  her  seem'd  to  turn 
round;  she  grew  faint  also  with  cold  Sweats,  and 
sometimes  a  light  Vomiting."  There  could  have 
been  Beer  in  that  cellar  as  well  as  Spiders. 

Here  are  some  more  of  the  effects  of  imagination: 
"Sennertus  takes  Notice  of  the  Signs  of  the  Bite  or 
Sting  of  this  Insect  to  be  a  Stupor  or  Numbness  upon 
the  Part,  with  a  sense  of  Cold,  Horror,  or  Swelling 
of  the  Abdomen,  Paleness  of  the  Face,  involuntary 
Tears,  Trembling,  Contractions,  a  (.  .  .),  Convul 
sions,  cold  Sweats;  but  these  latter  chiefly  when  the 
Poison  has  been  received  inwardly,"  whereas  the 
modern  physician  holds  that  a  few  spiders  taken  in 
wardly,  by  a  bird  or  a  man,  will  do  neither  party  any 
harm. 

The  above  "Signs"  are  not  restricted  to  spider 
bites — often  they  merely  indicate  fright.  I  have 
seen  a  person  with  a  hornet  in  his  pantaloons  exhibit 
them  all. 

343 


A    MAJESTIC    LITERARY    FOSSIL 

As  to  the  Cure,  not  slighting  the  usual  Alexipharmics  taken 
internally,  the  Place  bitten  must  be  immediately  washed  with 
Salt  Water,  or  a  Sponge  dipped  in  hot  Vinegar,  or  fomented  with 
a  Decoction  of  Mallows,  Origanum,  and  Mother  of  Thyme;  after 
which  a  Cataplasm  must  be  laid  on  of  the  Leaves  of  Bay,  Rue, 
Leeks,  and  the  Meal  of  Barley,  boiled  with  Vinegar,  or  of  Garlick 
and  Onions,  contused  with  Goat's  Dung  and  fat  Figs.  Mean 
time  the  Patient  should  eat  Garlick  and  drink  Wine  freely. 

As  for  me,  I  should  prefer  the  spider  bite.  Let  us 
close  this  review  with  a  sample  or  two  of  the  earth 
quakes  which  the  old-time  doctor  used  to  introduce 
into  his  patient  when  he  could  find  room.  Under 
this  head  we  have  " Alexander's  Golden  Antidote," 
which  is  good  for— well,  pretty  much  everything. 
It  is  probably  the  old  original  first  patent-medicine. 
It  is  built  as  follows: 

Take  of  Afarabocca,  Henbane,  Carpobalsamum,  each  two 
Drams  and  a  half;  of  Cloves,  Opium,  Myrrh,  Cyperus,  each  two 
Drams;  of  Opobalsamum,  Indian  Leaf,  Cinnamon,  Zedoary, 
Ginger,  Coftus,  Coral,  Cassia,  Euphorbium,  Gum  Tragacanth, 
Frankincense,  Styrax  Calamita,  Celtic,2Nard,  Spignel,  Hartwort, 
Mustard,  Saxifrage,  Dill,  Anise,  each  one  Dram;  of  Xylaloes, 
Rheums  Ponticum,  Alipta  Moschata,  Castor,  Spikenard,  Galan- 
gals,  Opoponax,  Anacardium,  Mastich,  Brimstone,  Peony, 
Eringo,  Pulp  of  Dates,  red  and  white  Hermodactyls,  Roses, 
Thyme,  Acorns,  Penyroyal,  Gentian,  the  Bark  of  the  Root  of 
Mandrake,  Germander,  Valerian,  Bishops  Weed,  Bay-berries, 
long  and  white  Pepper,  Xylobalsamum,  Carnabadium,  Mace 
donian,  Parsley-seeds,  Lovage,  the  Seeds  of  Rue,  and  Sinon,  of 
each  a  Dram  and  a  half;  of  pure  Gold,  pure  Silver,  Pearls  not 
perforated,  the  Blatta  Byzantina,  the  Bone  of  the  Stag's  Heart, 
of  each  the  Quantity  of  fourteen  Grains  of  Wheat;  of  Sapphire, 
Emerald,  and  Jasper  Stones,  each  one  Dram;  of  Haslenut,  two 
Drams;  of  Pellitory  of  Spain,  Shavings  of  Ivory,  Calamus 
Odoratus,  each  the -Quantity  of  twenty-nine  Grains  of  Wheat; 
of  Honey  or  Sugar  a  sufficient  Quantity. 


MARK    TWAIN 

Serve  with  a  shovel.  No;  one  might  expect  such 
an  injunction  after  such  formidable  preparation;  but 
it  is  not  so.  The  dose  recommended  is  "the  Quan 
tity  of  an  Haslenut."  Only  that;  it  is  because  there 
is  so  much  jewelry  in  it,  no  doubt. 

Aqua  Limacum.  Take  a  great  Peck  of  Garden-snails,  and 
wash  them  in  a  great  deal  of  Beer,  and  make  your  Chimney  very 
clean,  and  set  a  Bushel  of  Charcoal  on  Fire;  and  when  they  are 
thoroughly  kindled,  make  a  Hole  in  the  Middle  of  the  Fire,  and 
put  the  Snails  in,  and  scatter  more  Fire  amongst  them,  and  let 
them  roast  till  they  make  a  Noise;  then  take  them  out,  and,  with 
a  Knife  and  coarse  Cloth,  pick  and  wipe  away  all  the  green  froth : 
Then  break  them,  Shells  and  all,  in  a  Stone  Mortar.  Take  also 
a  Quart  of  Earth-worms,  and  scour  them  with  Salt,  divers  times 
over.  Then  take  two  Handfuls  of  Angelica  and  lay  them  in  the 
Bottom  of  the  Still;  next  lay  two  Handfuls  of  Celandine;  next 
a  Quart  of  Rosemary-flowers;  then  two  Handfuls  of  Bearsfoot 
and  Agrimony;  then  Fenugreek;  then  Turmerick;  of  each  one 
Ounce:  Red  Dock-root,  Bark  of  Barberry-trees,  Wood-sorrel, 
Betony,  of  each  two  Handfuls. — Then  lay  the  Snails  and  Worms 
on  the  top  of  the  Herbs;  and  then  two  Handfuls  of  Goose  Dung, 
and  two  Handfuls  of  Sheep  Dung.  Then  put  in  three  Gallons  of 
Strong  Ale,  and  place  the  pot  where  you  mean  to  set  Fire  under 
it:  Let  it  stand  all  Night,  or  longer;  in  the  Morning  put  in  three 
Ounces  of  Cloves  well  beaten,  and  a  small  Quantity  of  Saffron, 
dry'd  to  Powder;  then  six  Ounces  of  Shavings  of  Hartshorn, 
which  must  be  uppermost.  Fix  on  the  Head  and  Refrigeratory, 
and  distil  according  to  Art. 

There.  The  book  does  not  say  whether  this  is 
all  one  dose,  or  whether  you  have  a  right  to  split  it 
and  take  a  second  chance  at  it,  in  case  you  live. 
Also,  the  book  does  not  seem  to  specify  what  ailment 
it  was  for;  but  it  is  of  no  consequence,  for  of  course 
that  would  come  out  on  the  inquest. 

Upon  looking  further,  I  find  that  this  formidable 
nostrum  is  "good  for  raising  Flatulencies  in  the 

344 


A    MAJESTIC    LITERARY    FOSSIL 

Stomach" — meaning  from  the  stomach,  no  doubt. 
So  it  would  appear  that  when  our  progenitors  chanced 
to  swallow  a  sigh,  they  emptied  a  sewer  down  their 
throats  to  expel  it.  It  is  like  dislodging  skippers 
from  cheese  with  artillery. 

When  you  reflect  that  your  own  father  had  to  take 
such  medicines  as  the  above,  and  that  you  would  be 
taking  them  to-day  yourself  but  for  the  introduction 
of  homeopathy,  which  forced  the  old-school  doctor 
to  stir  around  and  learn  something  of  a  rational 
nature  about  his  business,  you  may  honestly  feel 
grateful  that  homeopathy  survived  the  attempts  of 
the  allopathists  to  destroy  it,  even  though  you  may 
never  employ  any  physician  but  an  allopathist  while 
you  live. 

23 


AT    THE    APPETITE    CURE 

THIS  establishment's  name  is  Hochberghaus.  It 
is  in  Bohemia,  a  short  day's  journey  from 
Vienna,  and  being  in  the  Austrian  Empire  is,  of 
course,  a  health  resort.  The  empire  is  made  up  of 
health  resorts;  it  distributes  health  to  the  whole 
world.  Its  waters  are  all  medicinal.  They  are 
bottled  and  sent  throughout  the  earth;  the  natives 
themselves  drink  beer.  This  is  self-sacrifice,  appar 
ently — but  outlanders  who  have  drunk  Vienna  beer 
have  another  idea  about  it.  Particularly  the  Pilse- 
ner  which  one  gets  in  a  small  cellar  up  an  obscure 
back  lane  in  the  First  Bezirk — the  name  has  escaped 
me,  but  the  place  is  easily  found:  You  inquire  for 
the  Greek  church;  and  when  you  get  to  it,  go  right 
along  by — the  next  house  is  that  little  beer-mill. 
It  is  remote  from  all  traffic  and  all  noise;  it  is  always 
Sunday  there.  There  are  two  small  rooms,  with  low 
ceilings  supported  by  massive  arches ;  the  arches  and 
ceilings  are  whitewashed,  otherwise  the  rooms  would 
pass  for  cells  in  the  dungeons  of  a  bastile.  The 
furniture  is  plain  and  cheap,  there  is  no  ornamen 
tation  anywhere;  yet  it  is  a  heaven  for  the  self- 
sacrificers,  for  the  beer  there  is  incomparable;  there 
is  nothing  like  it  elsewhere  in  the  world.  In  the  first 
room  you  will  find  twelve  or  fifteen  ladies  and  gentle- 

346 


AT    THE    APPETITE    CURE 

men  of  civilian  quality;  in  the  other  one  a  dozen 
generals  and  ambassadors.  One  may  live  in  Vienna 
many  months  and  not  hear  of  this  place ;  but  having 
once  heard  of  it  and  sampled  it  the  sampler  will 
afterward  infest  it. 

However,  this  is  all  incidental — a  mere  passing 
note  of  gratitude  for  blessings  received — it  has 
nothing  to  do  with  my  subject.  My  subject  is  health 
resorts.  All  unhealthy  people  ought  to  domicile 
themselves  in  Vienna,  and  use  that  as  a  base, 
making  flights  from  time  to  time  to  the  outlying 
resorts,  according  to  need.  A  flight  to  Marien- 
bad  to  get  rid  of  fat;  a  flight  to  Carlsbad  to  get 
rid  of  rheumatism;  a  flight  to  Kaltenleutgeben  to 
take  the  water  cure  and  get  rid  of  the  rest  of  the 
diseases.  It  is  all  so  handy.  You  can  stand  in 
Vienna  and  toss  a  biscuit  into  Kaltenleutgeben, 
with  a  twelve-inch  gun.  You  can  run  out  thither 
at  any  time  of  the  day;  you  go  by  the  phenom 
enally  slow  trains,  and  yet  inside  of  an  hour  you 
have  exchanged  the  glare  and  swelter  of  the  city 
for  wooded  hills,  and  shady  forest  paths,  and  soft, 
cool  airs,  and  the  music  of  birds,  and  the  repose 
and  peace  of  paradise. 

And  there  are  plenty  of  other  health  resorts  at 
your  service  and  convenient  to  get  at  from  Vienna; 
charming  places,  all  of  them;  Vienna  sits  in  the 
center  of  a  beautiful  world  of  mountains  with  now 
and  then  a  lake  and  forests;  in  fact,  no  other  city  is 
SO  fortunately  situated. 

There  are  abundance  of  health  resorts,  as  I  have 
said,  Among  them  this  place — Hochberghaus.  It 

347 


MARK    TWAIN 

stands  solitary  on  the  top  of  a  densely  wooded 
mountain,  and  is  a  building  of  great  size.  It  is 
called  the  Appetite  Anstalt,  and  people  who  have 
lost  their  appetites  come  here  to  get  them  restored. 
When  I  arrived  I  was  taken  by  Professor  Haimberger 
to  his  consulting-room  and  questioned: 

"It  is  six  o'clock.     When  did  you  eat  last?" 

"At  noon." 

"What  did  you  eat?" 

"Next  to  nothing." 

"What  was  on  the  table?" 

"The  usual  things." 

"Chops,  chickens,  vegetables,  and  so  on?" 

"Yes;  but  don't  mention  them — I  can't  bear  it/' 

"Are  you  tired  of  them?" 

"Oh,  utterly.  I  wish  I  might  never  hear  of  them 
again." 

"The  mere  sight  of  food  offends  you,  does  it?" 

"More,  it  revolts  me." 

The  doctor  considered  awhile,  then  got  out  a  long 
menu  and  ran  his  eye  slowly  down  it. 

"I  think,"  said  he,  "that  what  you  need  to  eat 
is — but  here,  choose  for  yourself." 

I  glanced  at  the  list,  and  my  stomach  threw  a 
handspring.  Of  all  the  barbarous  layouts  that  were 
ever  contrived,  this  was  the  most  atrocious.  At  the 
top  stood  "tough,  underdone,  overdue  tripe,  gar 
nished  with  garlic";  half-way  down  the  bill  stood 
"young  cat;  old  cat;  scrambled  cat";  at  the  bottom 
stood  "sailor-boots,  softened  with  tallow — served 
raw."  The  wide  intervals  of  the  bill  were  packed 
with  dishes  calculated  to  insult  a  cannibal,  I  said  : 

34S 


AT    THE    APPETITE    CURE 

"Doctor,  it  is  not  fair  to  joke  over  so  serious  a 
case  as  mine.  I  came  here  to  get  an  appetite,  not  to 
throw  away  the  remnant  that's  left." 

He  said,  gravely,  "I  am  not  joking;  why  should 
I  joke?" 

"But  I  can't  eat  these  horrors." 

"Why  not?" 

He  said  it  with  a  naivete  that  was  admirable, 
whether  it  was  real  or  assumed. 

"Why  not?  Because — why,  doctor,  for  months 
I  have  seldom  been  able  to  endure  anything  more 
substantial  than  omelettes  and  custards.  These  un 
speakable  dishes  of  yours — 

"Oh,  you  will  come  to  like  them.  They  are  very 
good.  And  you  must  eat  them.  It  is  the  rule  of  the 
place,  and  is  strict.  I  cannot  permit  any  departure 
from  it." 

I  said,  smiling:  "Well,  then,  doctor,  you  will  have 
to  permit  the  departure  of  the  patient.  I  am 
going." 

He  looked  hurt,  and  said  in  a  way  which  changed 
the  aspect  of  things: 

"I  am  sure  you  would  not  do  me  that  injustice. 
I  accepted  you  in  good  faith — you  will  not  shame 
that  confidence.  This  appetite  cure  is  my  whole 
living.  If  you  should  go  forth  from  it  with  the  sort 
of  appetite  which  you  now  have,  it  could  become 
known,  and  you  can  see,  yourself,  that  people  would 
say  my  cure  failed  in  your  case  and  hence  can  fail 
in  other  cases.  You  will  not  go;  you  will  not  do 
me  this  hurt." 

I  apologized  and  said  I  would  stay. 
349 


MARK    TWAIN 

"That  is  right.  I  was  sure  you  would  not  go; 
it  would  take  the  food  from  my  family's  mouths.'' 

"Would  they  mind  that?  Do  they  eat  these 
fiendish  things?" 

' '  They  ?  My  family  ? ' '  His  eyes  were  full  of  gentle 
wonder.  "Of  course  not." 

"Oh,  they  don't!     Do  you?" 

"Certainly  not." 

"I  see.  It's  another  case  of  a  physician  who 
doesn't  take  his  own  medicine." 

' '  I  don't  need  it.  It  is  six  hours  since  you  lunched. 
Will  you  have  supper  now — or  later?" 

"I  am  not  hungry,  but  now  is  as  good  a  time  as 
any,  and  I  would  like  to  be  done  with  it  and  have  it 
off  my  mind.  It  is  about  my  usual  time,  and  regu 
larity  is  commanded  by  all  the  authorities.  Yes, 
I  will  try  to  nibble  a  little  now — I  wish  a  light  horse 
whipping  would  answer  instead." 

The  professor  handed  me  that  odious  menu. 

"Choose — or  will  you  have  it  later?" 

"Oh,  dear  me,  show  me  to  my  room;  I  forgot 
your  hard  rule." 

"Wait  just  a  moment  before  you  finally  decide 
There  is  another  rule.     If  you  choose  now,  the  order 
will  be  filled  at  once;  but  if  you  wait,  you  will  have 
to  await  my  pleasure.     You  cannot  get  a  dish  from 
that  entire  bill  until  I  consent." 

"All  right.  Show  me  to  my  room,  and  send 
the  cook  to  bed;  there  is  not  going  to  be  any 
hurry." 

The  professor  took  me  up  one  flight  of  stairs  and 
showed  me  into  a  most  inviting  and  comfortable 


AT    THE    APPETITE    CURE 

apartment  consisting  of  parlor,  bedchamber,  and 
bath-room. 

The  front  windows  looked  out  over  a  far-reaching 
spread  of  green  glades  and  valleys,  and  tumbled  hills 
clothed  with  forests — a  noble  solitude  unvexed  by 
the  fussy  world.  In  the  parlor  were  many  shelves 
rilled  with  books.  The  professor  said  he  would  now 
leave  me  to  myself;  and  added: 

"Smoke  and  read  as  much  as  you  please,  drink 
all  the  water  you  like.  When  you  get  hungry,  ring 
and  give  your  order,  and  I  will  decide  whether  it 
shall  be  filled  or  not.  Yours  is  a  stubborn,  bad  case, 
and  I  think  the  first  fourteen  dishes  in  the  bill  are 
each  and  all  too  delicate  for  its  needs.  I  ask  you  as 
a  favor  to  restrain  yourself  and  not  call  for  them." 

" Restrain  myself,  is  it?  Give  yourself  no  uneasi 
ness.  You  are  going  to  save  money  by  me.  The 
idea  of  coaxing  a  sick  man's  appetite  back  with  this 
buzzard  fare  is  clear  insanity." 

I  said  it  with  bitterness,  for  I  felt  outraged  by  this 
calm,  cold  talk  over  these  heartless  new  engines  of 
assassination.  The  doctor  looked  grieved,  but  not 
offended.  He  laid  the  bill  of  fare  on  the  commode 
at  my  bed's  head,  "so  that  it  would  be  handy," 
and  said: 

"Yours  is  not  the  worst  case  I  have  encountered, 
by  any  means;  still  it  is  a  bad  one  and  requires 
robust  treatment ;  therefore  I  shall  be  gratified  if  you 
will  restrain  yourself  and  skip  down  to  No.  15  and 
begin  with  that." 

Then  he  left  me  and  I  began  to  undress,  for  I  was 
dog-tired  and  very  sleepy.  I  slept  fifteen  hours  and 


MARK    TWAIN 

woke  up  finely  refreshed  at  ten  the  next  morning. 
Vienna  coffee !  It  was  the  first  thing  I  thought  of — 
that  unapproachable  luxury — that  sumptuous  coffee 
house  coffee,  compared  with  which  all  other  European 
coffee  and  all  American  hotel  coffee  is  mere  fluid 
poverty.  I  rang,  and  ordered  it;  also  Vienna  bread, 
that  delicious  invention.  The  servant  spoke  through 
the  wicket  in  the  door  and  said — but  you  know  what 
he  said.  He  referred  me  to  the  bill  of  fare.  I 
allowed  him  to  go — I  had  no  further  use  for  him. 

After  the  bath  I  dressed  and  started  for  a  walk, 
and  got  as  far  as  the  door.  It  was  locked  on  the 
outside.  I  rang  and  the  servant  came  and  explained 
that  it  was  another  rule.  The  seclusion  of  the  patient 
was  required  until  after  the  first  meal.  I  had  not 
been  particularly  anxious  to  get  out  before;  but  it 
was  different  now.  Being  locked  in  makes  a  person 
wishful  to  get  out.  I  soon  began  to  find  it  difficult 
to  put  in  the  time.  At  two  o'clock  I  had  been 
twenty-six  hours  without  food.  I  had  been  growing 
hungry  for  some  time;  I  recognized  that  I  was 
not  only  hungry  now,  but  hungry  with  a  strong 
adjective  in  front  of  it.  Yet  I  was  not  hungry 
enough  to  face  the  bill  of  fare. 

I  must  put  in  the  time  somehow.  I  would  read 
and  smoke.  I  did  it;  hour  by  hour.  The  books 
were  all  of  one  breed — shipwrecks;  people  lost  in 
deserts;  people  shut  up  in  caved-in  mines;  people 
starving  in  besieged  cities.  I  read  about  all  the 
revolting  dishes  that  ever  famishing  men  had  stayed 
their  hunger  with.  During  the  first  hours  these  things 
nauseated  me;  hours  followed  in  which  they  did  not 

35? 


AT    THE    APPETITE    CURE 

so  affect  me;  still  other  hours  followed  in  which  I 
found  myself  smacking  my  lips  over  some  tolerably 
infernal  messes.  When  I  had  been  without  food 
forty-five  hours  I  ran  eagerly  to  the  bell  and  ordered 
the  second  dish  in  the  bill,  which  was  a  sort  of 
dumplings  containing  a  compost  made  of  caviar  and 
tar. 

It  was  refused  me.  During  the  next  fifteen  hours 
I  visited  the  bell  every  now  and  then  and  ordered  a 
dish  that  was  further  down  the  list.  Always  a  re 
fusal.  But  I  was  conquering  prejudice  after  preju 
dice,  right  along;  I  was  making  sure  progress;  I 
was  creeping  up  on  No,  15  with  deadly  certainty, 
and  my  heart  beat  faster  and  faster,  my  hopes  rose 
higher  and  higher. 

At  last  when  food  had  not  passed  my  lips  for 
sixty  hours,  victory  was  mine,  and  I  ordered  No. 

15: 

" Soft-boiled  spring  chicken — in  the  egg;  six 
dozen,  hot  and  fragrant!" 

In  fifteen  minutes  it  was  there;  and  the  doctor 
along  with  it,  rubbing  his  hands  with  joy.  He  said 
with  great  excitement: 

"It's  a  cure,  it's  a  cure!  I  knew  I  could  do  it. 
Dear  sir,  my  grand  system  never  fails — never. 
You've  got  your  appetite  back — you  know  you 
have;  say  it  and  make  me  happy. " 

"Bring  on  your  carrion — I  can  eat  anything  in 
the  bill!" 

"Oh,  this  is  noble,  this  is  splendid — but  I  knew 
I  could  do  it,  the  system  never  fails.  How  are  the 
birds?" 

353 


MARK    TWAIN 

''Never  was  anything  so  delicious  in  the  world; 
and  yet  as  a  rule  I  don't  care  for  game.  But  don't 
interrupt  me,  don't —  I  can't  spare  my  mouth,  I 
really  can't." 

Then  the  doctor  said: 

"The  cure  is  perfect.  There  is  no  more  doubt 
nor  danger.  Let  the  poultry  alone;  I  can  trust  you 
with  a  beefsteak  now." 

The  beefsteak  came — as  much  as  a  basketful  of 
it — with  potatoes,  and  Vienna  bread  and  coffee; 
and  I  ate  a  meal  then  that  was  worth  all  the  costly 
preparation  I  had  made  for  it.  And  dripped  tears 
of  gratitude  into  the  gravy  all  the  time — gratitude 
to  the  doctor  for  putting  a  little  plain  common  sense 
into  me  when  I  had  been  empty  of  it  so  many,  many 
years. 

II 

Thirty  years  ago  Haimberger  went  off  on  a  long 
voyage  in  a  sailing-ship.  There  were  fifteen  pas 
sengers  on  board.  The  table-fare  was  of  the  regula 
tion  pattern  of  the  day :  At  seven  in  the  morning,  a 
cup  of  bad  coffee  in  bed;  at  nine,  breakfast:  bad 
coffee,  with  condensed  milk;  soggy  rolls,  crackers, 
salt  fish;  at  i  P.M.,  luncheon:  cold  tongue,  cold  ham, 
cold  corned  beef,  soggy  cold  rolls,  crackers;  5  P.M., 
dinner:  thick  pea-soup,  salt  fish,  hot  corned  beef 
and  sauerkraut,  boiled  pork  and  beans,  pudding; 
9  till  ii  P.M.,  supper:  tea,  with  condensed  milk, 
cold  tongue,  cold  ham,  pickles,  sea-biscuit,  pickled 
oysters,  pickled  pig's  feet,  grilled  bones,  golden  buck. 

At  the  end  of  the  first  week  eating  had  ceased, 
354 


AT    THE    APPETITE    CURE 

nibbling  had  taken  its  place.  The  passengers  came 
to  the  table,  but  it  was  partly  to  put  in  the  time,  and 
partly  because  the  wisdom  of  the  ages  commanded 
them  to  be  regular  in  their  meals.  They  were  tired 
of  the  coarse  and  monotonous  fare,  and  took  no 
interest  in  it,  had  no  appetite  for  it.  All  day 
and  every  day  they  roamed  the  ship  half  hungry, 
plagued  by  their  gnawing  stomachs,  moody,  untalk- 
ative,  miserable.  Among  them  were  three  confirmed 
dyspeptics.  These  became  shadows  in  the  course 
of  three  weeks.  There  was  also  a  bedridden  invalid ; 
he  lived  on  boiled  rice;  he  could  not  look  at  the 
regular  dishes. 

Now  came  shipwreck  and  life  in  open  boats,  with 
the  usual  paucity  of  food.  Provisions  ran  lower  and 
lower.  The  appetites  improved,  then.  When  noth 
ing  was  left  but  raw  ham  and  the  ration  of  that  was 
down  to  two  ounces  a  day  per  person,  the  appetites 
were  perfect.  At  the  end  of  fifteen  days  the  dys 
peptics,  the  invalid  and  the  most  delicate  ladies  in 
the  party  were  chewing  sailor-boots  in  ecstasy,  and 
only  complaining  because  the  supply  of  them  was 
limited.  Yet  these  were  the  same  people  who 
couldn't  endure  the  ship's  tedious  corned  beef  and 
sauerkraut  and  other  crudities.  They  were  rescued 
by  an  English  vessel.  Within  ten  days  the  whole 
fifteen  were  in  as  good  condition  as  they  had  been 
when  the  shipwreck  occurred. 

"They  had  suffered  no  damage  by  their  adven 
ture,"  said  the  professor.  "Do  you  note  that?" 

"Yes." 

"Do  you  note  it  well?" 

355 


MARK    TWAIN 

"Yes— I  think  I  do." 

"But  you  don't.  You  hesitate.  You  don't  rise 
to  the  importance  of  it.  I  will  say  it  again — with 
emphasis — not  one  of  them  suffered  any  damage" 

"Now  I  begin  to  see.  Yes,  it  was  indeed  re 
markable.  "J 

"Nothing  of  the  kind.  It  was  perfectly  natural. 
There  was  no  reason  why  they  should  suffer  damage. 
They  were  undergoing  Nature's  Appetite  Cure,  the 
best  and  wisest  in  the  world." 

"Is  that  where  you  got  your  idea?" 

"That  is  where  I  got  it." 

"It  taught  those  people  a  valuable  lesson." 

"What  makes  you  think  that?" 

"Why  shouldn't  I?  You  seem  to  think  it  taught 
you  one." 

"That  is  nothing  to  the  point.  I  am  not  a 
fool." 

' '  I  see.     Were  they  fools  ?" 

"They  were  human  beings." 

"Is  it  the  same  thing?" 

"Why  do  you  ask?  You  know  it  yourself.  As 
regards  his  health — and  the  rest  of  the  things — the 
average  man  is  what  his  environment  and  his  super 
stitions  have  made  him;  and  their  function  is  to 
make  him  an  ass.  He  can't  add  up  three  or  four 
new  circumstances  together  and  perceive  what  they 
mean;  it  is  beyond  him.  He  is  not  capable  of 
observing  for  himself.  He  has  to  get  everything  at 
second  hand.  If  what  are  miscalled  the  lower  ani 
mals  were  as  silly  as  man  is,  they  would  all  perish 
from  the  earth  in  a  year/' 

356 


AT    THE    APPETITE    CURE 

"Those  passengers  learned  no  lesson,  then?" 
"Not  a  sign  of  it.  They  went  to  their  regular 
meals  in  the  English  ship,  and  pretty  soon  they  were 
nibbling  again — nibbling,  appetiteless,  disgusted  with 
the  food,  moody,  miserable,  half  hungry,  their  out 
raged  stomachs  cursing  and  swearing  and  whining 
and  supplicating  all  day  long.  And  in  vain,  for  they 
\vere  the  stomachs  of  fools." 

"Then,  as  I  understand  it,  your  scheme  is— 
" Quite  simple.  Don't  eat  till  you  are  hungry. 
If  the  food  fails  to  taste  good,  fails  to  satisfy  you, 
rejoice  you,  comfort  you,  don't  eat  again  until  you 
are  very  hungry.  Then  it  will  rejoice  you — and  do 
you  good,  too." 

"And  I  observe  no  regularity,  as  to  hours?" 
"When  you  are  conquering  a  bad  appetite — no. 
After  it  is  conquered,  regularity  is  no  harm,  so  long 
as  the  appetite  remains  good.  As  soon  as  the  appe 
tite  wavers,  apply  the  corrective  again — which  is 
starvation,  long  or  short  according  to  the  needs  of 
the  case." 

"The  best  diet,  I  suppose — I  mean  the  whole- 
somest — " 

"All  diets  are  wholesome.  Some  are  wholesomer 
than  others,  but  all  the  ordinary  diets  are  wholesome 
enough  for  the  people  who  use  them.  Whether  the 
food  be  fine  or  coarse,  it  will  taste  good  and  it  will 
nourish  if  a  watch  be  kept  upon  the  appetite  and  a 
little  starvation  introduced  every  time  it  weakens. 
Nansen  was  used  to  fine  fare,  but  when  his  meals 
were  restricted  to  bear-meat  months  at  a  time  he 
suffered  no  damage  and  no  discomfort,  because  his 

357 


MARK    TWAIN 

appetite  was  kept  at  par  through  the  difficulty  of 
getting  his  bear-meat  regularly." 

1  'But  doctors  arrange  carefully  considered  and 
delicate  diets  for  invalids." 

"They  can't  help  it.  The  invalid  is  full  of  in 
herited  superstitions  and  won't  starve  himself.  He 
believes  it  would  certainly  kill  him." 

"It  would  weaken  him,  wouldn't  it?" 

"Nothing  to  hurt.  Look  at  the  invalids  in  our 
shipwreck.  They  lived  fifteen  days  on  pinches  of 
raw  ham,  a  suck  at  sailor-boots,  and  general  starva 
tion.  It  weakened  them,  but  it  didn't  hurt  them. 
It  put  them  in  fine  shape  to  eat  heartily  of  hearty 
food  and  build  themselves  up  to  a  condition  of  robust 
health.  But  they  did  not  perceive  that;  they  lost 
their  opportunity;  they  remained  invalids;  it  served 
them  right.  Do  you  know  the  tricks  that  the  health- 
resort  doctors  play?" 

"What  is  it?"  " 

' '  My  system  disguised — covert  starvation.  Grape- 
cure,  bath-cure,  mud-cure  —  it  is  all  the  same. 
The  grape  and  the  bath  and  the  mud  make  a  show 
and  do  a  trifle  of  the  work — the  real  work  is  done 
by  the  surreptitious  starvation.  The  patient  ac 
customed  to  four  meals  and  late  hours — at  both 
ends  of  the  day — now  consider  what  he  has  to  do 
at  a  health  resort.  He  gets  up  at  six  in  the  morning. 
Eats  one  egg.  Tramps  up  and  down  a  promenade 
two  hours  with  the  other  fools.  Eats  a  butterfly. 
Slowly  drinks  a  glass  of  filtered  sewage  that  smells 
like  a  buzzard's  breath.  Promenades  another  two 
hours,  but  alone;  if  you  speak  to  him  he  says 

358 


AT    THE    APPETITE    CURE 

anxiously,  *  My  water !  —  I  am  walking  off  my 
water! — please  don't  interrupt,'  and  goes  stumping 
along  again.  Eats  a  candied  rose-leaf.  Lies  at  rest 
in  the  silence  and  solitude  of  his  room  for  hours; 
mustn't  speak,  mustn't  read,  mustn't  smoke.  The 
doctor  comes  and  feels  of  his  heart,  now,  and  his 
pulse,  and  thumps  his  breast  and  his  back  and  his 
stomach,  and  listens  for  results  through  a  penny 
flageolet ;  then  orders  the  man's  bath — half  a  degree, 
Reaumur,  cooler  than  yesterday.  After  the  bath, 
another  egg.  A  glass  of  sewage  at  three  or  four  in  the 
afternoon,  and  promenade  solemnly  with  the  other 
freaks.  Dinner  at  six — half  a  doughnut  and  a  cup 
of  tea.  Walk  again.  Half  past  eight,  supper — more 
butterfly;  at  nine,  to  bed.  Six  weeks  of  this  regime 
—think  of  it.  It  starves  a  man  out  and  puts  him  in 
splendid  condition.  It  would  have  the  same  effect 
in  London,  New  York,  Jericho — anywhere." 

"How  long  does  it  take  to  put  a  person  in  con 
dition  here?" 

"It  ought  to  take  but  a  day  or  two;  but  in  fact 
it  takes  from  one  to  six  weeks,  according  to  the 
character  and  mentality  of  the  patient." 

"How  is  that?" 

"Do  you  see  that  crowd  of  women  playing  foot 
ball,  and  boxing,  and  jumping  fences  yonder?  They 
have  been  here  six  or  seven  weeks.  They  were 
spectral  poor  weaklings  when  they  came.  They 
were  accustomed  fco  nibbling  at  dainties  and  deli 
cacies  at  set  hours  four  times  a  day,  and  they  had  no 
appetite  for  anything.  I  questioned  them,  and  then 
locked  them  into  their  rooms,  the  frailest  ones  to 

24  359 


MARK    TWAIN 

starve  nine  or  ten  hours,  the  others  twelve  or  fifteen. 
Before  long  they  began  to  beg;  and  indeed  they 
suffered  a  good  deal.  They  complained  of  nausea, 
headache,  and  so  on.  It  was  good  to  see  them  eat 
when  the  time  was  up.  They  could  not  remember 
when  the  devouring  of  a  meal  had  afforded  them 
such  rapture — that  was  their  word.  Now,  then, 
that  ought  to  have  ended  their  cure,  but  it  didn't. 
They  were  free  to  go  to  any  meals  in  the  house,  and 
they  chose  their  accustomed  four.  Within  a  day  or 
two  I  had  to  interfere.  Their  appetites  were 
weakening.  I  made  them  knock  out  a  meal.  That 
set  them  up  again.  Then  they  resumed  the  four.  I 
begged  them  to  learn  to  knock  out  a  meal  themselves, 
without  waiting  for  me.  Up  to  a  fortnight  ago  they 
couldn't;  they  really  hadn't  manhood  enough;  but 
they  were  gaining  it,  and  now  I  think  they  are  safe. 
They  drop  out  a  meal  every  now  and  then  of  their 
own  accord.  They  are  in  fine  condition  now,  and 
they  might  safely  go  home,  I  think,  but  their  con 
fidence  is  not  quite  perfect  yet,  so  they  are  waiting 
awhile." 

"Other  cases  are  different?" 

"Oh,  yes.  Sometimes  a  man  learns  the  whole 
trick  in  a  week.  Learns  to  regulate  his  appetite  and 
keep  it  in  perfect  order.  Learns  to  drop  out  a  meal 
with  frequency  and  not  mind  it." 

"But  why  drop  the  entire  meal  out?  Why  not  a 
part  of  it?" 

"It's  a  poor  device,  and  inadequate.  If  the 
stomach  doesn't  call  vigorously — with  a  shout,  as 
you  may  say — it  is  better  not  to  pester  it,  but  just 

360 


HE    EATS    A    BUTTERFLY 


AT    THE    APPETITE    CURE 

give  it  a  real  rest.  Some  people  can  eat  more  meals 
than  others,  and  still  thrive.  There  are  all  sorts  of 
people,  and  all  sorts  of  appetites.  I  will  show  you 
a  man  presently  who  was  accustomed  to  nibble  at 
eight  meals  a  day.  It  was  beyond  the  proper  gait 
of  his  appetite  by  two.  I  have  got  him  down  to 
six  a  day,  now,  and  he  is  all  right,  and  enjoys  life. 
How  many  meals  do  you  effect  per  day?" 

''Formerly — for  twenty-two  years — a  meal  and 
a  half;  during  the  past  two  years,  two  and  a  half: 
coffee  and  a  roll  at  nine,  luncheon  at  one,  dinner  at 
seven- thirty  or  eight." 

"Formerly  a  meal  and  a  half — that  is,  coffee  and 
a  roll  at  nine,  dinner  in  the  evening,  nothing  be 
tween — is  that  it?" 

"Yes." 

"Why  did  you  add  a  meal?" 

"It  was  the  family's  idea.  They  were  uneasy. 
They  thought  I  was  killing  myself." 

"You  found  a  meal  and  a  half  per  day  enough, 
all  through  the  twenty- two  years?" 

"Plenty." 

"Your  present  poor  condition  is  due  to  the  extra 
meal.  Drop  it  out.  You  are  trying  to  eat  oftener 
than  your  stomach  demands.  You  don't  gain,  you 
lose.  You  eat  less  food  now,  in  a  day,  on  two  and 
a  half  meals,  than  you  formerly  ate  on  one  and  a 
half." 

"True — a  good  deal  less;  for  in  those  old  days 
my  dinner  was  a  very  sizable  thing." 

"Put  yourself  on  a  single  meal  a  day,   now— 
dinner — for  a   few   days,    till   you   secure   a   good, 
24  36i 


MARK    TWAIN 

sound,  regular,  trustworthy  appetite,  then  take  to 
your  one  and  a  half  permanently,  and  don't  listen  to 
the  family  any  more.  When  you  have  any  ordinary 
ailment,  particularly  of  a  feverish  sort,  eat  nothing 
at  all  during  twenty-four  hours.  That  will  cure  it. 
It  will  cure  the  stubbornest  cold  in  the  head,  too. 
No  cold  in  the  head  can  survive  twenty-four  hours 
on  modified  starvation." 

''I  know  it.     I  have  proved  it  many  a  time." 


SAINT    JOAN    OF    ARC 


CHAPTER    I 

THE  evidence  furnished  at  the  Trials  and  Re 
habilitation  sets  forth  Joan  of  Arc's  strange 
and  beautiful  history  in  clear  and  minute  detail. 
Among  all  the  multitude  of  biographies  that  freight 
the  shelves  of  the  world's  libraries,  this  is  the  only 
one  whose  validity  is  confirmed  to  us  by  oath.  It  gives 
us  a  vivid  picture  of  a  career  and  a  personality  of  so 
extraordinary  a  character  that  we  are  helped  to  ac 
cept  them  as  actualities  by  the  very  fact  that  both 
are  beyond  the  inventive  reach  of  fiction.  The 
public  part  of  the  career  occupied  only  a  mere 
breath  of  time — it  covered  but  two  years;  but  what 
a  career  it  was !  The  personality  which  made  it  pos- 

NOTE.— The  Official  Record  of  the  Trials  and  Rehabilitation  of 
Joan  of  Arc  is  the  most  remarkable  history  that  exists  in  any  lan 
guage;  yet  there  are  few  people  in  the  world  who  can  say  they  have 
read  it:  in  England  and  America  it  has  hardly  been  heard  of. 

Three  hundred  years  ago  Shakespeare  did  not  know  the  true  story 
of  Joan  of  Arc;  in  his  day  it  was  unknown  even  in  France.  For  four 
hundred  years  it  existed  rather  as  a  vaguely  defined  romance  than 
as  definite  and  authentic  history.  The  true  story  remained  buried 
in  the  official  archives  of  France  from  the  Rehabilitation  of  1456 
until  Quicherat  dug  it  out  and  gave  it  to  the  world  two  generations 
ago,  in  lucid  and  understandable  modern  French.  It  is  a  deeply 
fascinating  story.  But  only  in  the  Official  Trials  and  Rehabilita 
tion  can  it  be  found  in  its  entirety. — M.  T. 

363 


MARK    TWAIN 

sible  is  one  to  be  reverently  studied,  loved,  and  mar 
veled  at,  but  not  to  be  wholly  understood  and  ac 
counted  for  by  even  the  most  searching  analysis. 

In  Joan  of  Arc  at  the  age  of  sixteen  there  was  no 
promise  of  a  romance.  She  lived  in  a  dull  little  vil 
lage  on  the  frontiers  of  civilization;  she  had  been  no 
where  and  had  seen  nothing;  she  knew  none  but 
simple  shepherd  folk ;  she  had  never  seen  a  person  of 
note ;  she  hardly  knew  what  a  soldier  looked  like ;  she 
had  never  ridden  a  horse,  nor  had  a  warlike  weapon 
in  her  hand;  she  could  neither  read  nor  write:  she 
could  spin  and  sew ;  she  knew  her  catechism  and  her 
prayers  and  the  fabulous  histories  of  the  saints,  and 
this  was  all  her  learning.  That  was  Joan  at  sixteen. 
What  did  she  know  of  law?  of  evidence?  of  courts? 
of  the  attorney's  trade?  of  legal  procedure?  Noth 
ing.  Less  than  nothing.  Thus  exhaustively  equip 
ped  with  ignorance,  she  went  before  the  court  at 
Toul  to  contest  a  false  charge  of  breach  of  promise 
of  marriage;  she  conducted  her  cause  herself,  with 
out  any  one's  help  or  advice  or  any  one's  friendly 
sympathy,  and  won  it.  She  called  no  witnesses  of 
her  own,  but  vanquished  the  prosecution  by  using 
with  deadly  effectiveness  its  own  testimony.  The 
astonished  judge  threw  the  case  out  of  court,  and 
spoke  of  her  as  "this  marvelous  child." 

She  went  to  the  veteran  Commandant  of  Vaucou- 
leurs  and  demanded  an  escort  of  soldiers,  saying  she 
must  march  to  the  help  of  the  King  of  France,  since 
she  was  commissioned  of  God  to  win  back  his  lost 
kingdom  for  him  and  set  the  crown  upon  his  head. 
The  Commandant  said,  "What,  you?  You  are  only 

364 


SAINT    JOAN    OF    ARC 

a  child."  And  he  advised  that  she  be  taken  back  to 
her  village  and  have  her  ears  boxed.  But  she  said 
she  must  obey  God,  and  would  come  again,  and 
again,  and  yet  again,  and  finally  she  would  get  the 
soldiers.  She  said  truly.  In  time  he  yielded,  after 
months  of  delay  and  refusal,  and  gave  her  the 
soldiers;  and  took  off  his  sword  and  gave  her  that, 
and  said,  "Go — and  let  come  what  may."  She  made 
her  long  and  perilous  journey  through  the  enemy's 
country,  and  spoke  with  the  King,  and  convinced 
him.  Then  she  was  summoned  before  the  Uni 
versity  of  Poitiers  to  prove  that  she  was  commis 
sioned  of  God  and  not  of  Satan,  and  daily  during 
three  weeks  she  sat  before  that  learned  congress  un 
afraid,  and  capably  answered  their  deep  questions 
out  of  her  ignorant  but  able  head  and  her  simple  and 
honest  heart;  and  again  she  won  her  case,  and  with 
it  the  wondering  admiration  of  all  that  august  com 
pany. 

And  now,  aged  seventeen,  she  was  made  Com- 
mander-in-Chief,  with  a  prince  of  the  royal  house 
and  the  veteran  generals  of  France  for  subordinates; 
and  at  the  head  of  the  first  army  she  had  ever  seen, 
she  marched  to  Orleans,  carried  the  commanding 
fortresses  of  the  enemy  by  storm  in  three  desperate 
assaults,  and  in  ten  days  raised  a  siege  which  had 
defied  the  might  of  France  for  seven  months. 

After  a  tedious  and  insane  delay  caused  by  the 
King's  instability  of  character  and  the  treacherous 
counsels  of  his  ministers,  she  got  permission  to  take 
the  field  again.  She  took  Jargeau  by  storm;  then 
Meung ;  she  forced  Beaugency  to  surrender ;  then— 

365 


MARK    TWAIN 

in  the  open  field — she  won  the  memorable  victory  of 
Patay  against  Talbot,  "the  English  lion,'*  and  broke 
the  back  of  the  Hundred  Years'  War.  It  was  a 
campaign  which  cost  but  seven  weeks  of  time;  yet 
the  political  results  would  have  been  cheap  if  the 
time  expended  had  been  fifty  years.  Patay,  that 
unsung  and  now  long-forgotten  battle,  was  the  Mos 
cow  of  the  English  power  in  France;  from  the  blow 
struck  that  day  it  was  destined  never  to  recover.  It 
was  the  beginning  of  the  end  of  an  alien  dominion 
which  had  ridden  France  intermittently  for  three 
hundred  years. 

Then  followed  the  great  campaign  of  the  Loire, 
the  capture  of  Troyes  by  assault,  and  the  triumphal 
march  past  surrendering  towns  and  fortresses  to 
Rheims,  where  Joan  put  the  crown  upon  her  King's 
head  in  the  Cathedral,  amid  wild  public  rejoicings, 
and  with  her  old  peasant  father  there  to  see  these 
things  and  believe  his  eyes  if  he  could.  She  had  re 
stored  the  crown  and  the  lost  sovereignty;  the  King 
was  grateful  for  once  in  his  shabby  poor  life,  and 
asked  her  to  name  her  reward  and  have  it.  She 
asked  for  nothing  for  herself,  but  begged  that  the 
taxes  of  her  native  village  might  be  remitted  forever. 
The  prayer  was  granted,  and  the  promise  kept  for 
three  hundred  and  sixty  years.  Then  it  was  broken, 
and  remains  broken  to-day.  France  was  very  poor 
then,  she  is  very  rich  now;  but  she  has  been  collecting 
those  taxes  for  more  than  a  hundred  years. 

Joan  asked  one  other  favor:  that  now  that  her 
mission  was  fulfilled  she  might  be  allowed  to  go  back 
to  her  village  and  take  up  her  humble  life  again  with 

366 


SAINT    JOAN    OF    ARC 

tier  mother  an^  the  friends  of  her  childhood;  for  she 
had  no  pleasure  in  the  cruelties  of  war,  and  the  sight 
of  blood  and  suffering  wrung  her  heart.  Sometimes 
in  battle  she  did  not  draw  her  sword,  lest  in  the 
splendid  madness  of  the  onset  she  might  forget  her 
self  and  take  an  enemy's  life  with  it.  In  the  Rouen 
Trials,  one  of  her  quaintest  speeches — coming  from 
the  gentle  and  girlish  source  it  did  was  her  naive 
remark^ that  she  had  "never  killed  any  one."  Her 
prayer  for  leave  to  go  back  to  the  rest  and  peace  of 
her  village  home  was  not  granted. 

Then  she  wanted  to  march  at  once  upon  Paris, 
take  it,  and  drive  the  English  out  of  France.  She 
was  hampered  in  all  the  ways  that  treachery  and  the 
King's  vacillation  could  devise,  but  she  forced  her 
way  to  Paris  at  last,  and  fell  badly  wounded  in  a 
successful  assault  upon  one  of  the  gates.  Of  course 
her  men  lost  heart  at  once — she  was  the  only  heart 
they  had.  They  fell  back.  She  begged  to  be  al 
lowed  to  remain  at  the  front,  saying  victory  was  sure. 
"I  will  take  Paris  now  or  die!"  she  said.  But  she 
was  removed  from  the  field  by  force;  the  King 
ordered  a  retreat,  and  actually  disbanded  his  army. 
In  accordance  with  a  beautiful  old  military  custom 
Joan  devoted  her  silver  armor  and  hung  it  up  in  the 
Cathedral  of  St.  Denis.  Its  great  days  were  over. 

Then,  by  command,  she  followed  the  King  and  his 
frivolous  court  and  endured  a  gilded  captivity  for  a 
time,  as  well  as  her  free  spirit  could;  and  whenever 
inaction  became  unbearable  she  gathered  some  men 
together  and  rode  away  and  assaulted  a  stronghold 
and  captured  it. 

367 


MARK    TWAIN 

At  last  in  a  sortie  against  the  enemy,  from  Com- 
piegne,  on  the  24th  of  May  (when  she  was  turned 
eighteen),  she  was  herself  captured,  after  a  gallant 
fight.  It  was  her  last  battle.  She  was  to  follow  the 
drums  no  more. 

Thus  ended  the  briefest  epoch-making  military 
career  known  to  history.  It  lasted  only  a  year  and 
a  month,  but  it  found  France  an  English  province, 
and  furnishes  the  reason  that  France  is  France  to-day 
and  not  an  English  province  still.  Thirteen  months ! 
It  was,  indeed,  a  short  career;  but  in  the  centuries 
that  have  since  elapsed  five  hundred  millions  of 
Frenchmen  have  lived  and  died  blest  by  the  benefac 
tions  it  conferred ;  and  so  long  as  France  shall  endure, 
the  mighty  debt  must  grow.  And  France  is  grateful ; 
we  often  hear  her  say  it.  Also  thrifty:  she  collects 
the  Domremy  taxes. 


CHAPTER    II 

JOAN  was  fated  to  spend  the  rest  of  her  life  behind 
bolts  and  bars.  She  was  a  prisoner  of  war,  not  a 
criminal,  therefore  hers  was  recognized  as  an  honor 
able  captivity.  By  the  rules  of  war  she  must  be 
held  to  ransom,  and  a  fair  price  could  not  be  refused 
if  offered.  John  of  Luxembourg  paid  her  the  just 
compliment  of  requiring  a  prince's  ransom  for  her. 
In  that  day  that  phrase  represented  a  definite  sum— 
61,125  francs.  It  was,  of  course,  supposable  that 
either  the  King  or  grateful  France,  or  both,  would 
fly  with  the  money  and  set  their  fair  young  bene 
factor  free.  But  this  did  not  happen.  In  five  and 
a  half  months  neither  King  nor  country  stirred  a 
hand  nor  offered  a  penny.  Twice  Joan  tried  to 
escape.  Once  by  a  trick  she  succeeded  for  a  mo 
ment,  and  locked  her  jailer  in  behind  her,  but  she 
was  discovered  and  caught;  in  the  other  case  she  let 
herself  down  from  a  tower  sixty  feet  high,  but  her 
rope  was  too  short,  and  she  got  a  fall  that  disabled 
her  and  she  could  not  get  away. 

Finally,  Cauchon,  Bishop  of  Beauvais,  paid  the 
money  and  bought  Joan — ostensibly  for  the  Church, 
to  be  tried  for  wearing  male  attire  and  for  other 
impieties,  but  really  for  the  English,  the  enemy  into 
Whose  hands  the  poor  girl  was  so  piteously  anxious 

369 


MARK    TWAIN 

not  to  fall.  She  was  now  shut  up  in  the  dungeons 
of  the  Castle  of  Rouen  and  kept  in  an  iron  cage, 
with  her  hands  and  feet  and  neck  chained  to  a  pillar; 
and  from  that  time  forth  during  all  the  months  of 
her  imprisonment,  till  the  end,  several  rough  English 
soldiers  stood  guard  over  her  night  and  day — and 
not  outside  her  room,  but  in  it.  It  was  a  dreary  and 
hideous  captivity,  but  it  did  not  conquer  her :  nothing 
could  break  that  invincible  spirit.  From  first  to  last 
she  was  a  prisoner  a  year;  and  she  spent  the  last 
three  months  of  it  on  trial  for  her  life  before  a  for 
midable  array  of  ecclesiastical  judges,  and  disputing 
the  ground  with  them  foot  by  foot  and  inch  by  inch 
with  brilliant  generalship  and  dauntless  pluck.  The 
spectacle  of  that  solitary  girl,  forlorn  and  friendless, 
without  advocate  or  adviser,  and  without  the  help 
and  guidance  of  any  copy  of  the  charges  brought 
against  her  or  rescript  of  the  complex  and  voluminous 
daily  proceedings  of  the  court  to  modify  the  crushing 
strain  upon  her  astonishing  memory,  fighting  that 
long  battle  serene  and  undismayed  against  these 
colossal  odds,  stands  alone  in  its  pathos  and  its 
sublimity;  it  has  nowhere  its  mate,  either  in  the 
annals  of  fact  or  in  the  inventions  of  fiction. 

And  how  fine  and  great  were  the  things  she  daily 
said,  how  fresh  and  crisp — and  she  so  worn  in  body, 
so  starved,  and  tired,  and  harried!  They  run 
through  the  whole  gamut  of  feeling  and  expression— 
from  scorn  and  defiance,  uttered  with  soldierly  fire 
and  frankness,  all  down  the  scale  to  wounded  dignity 
clothed  in  words  of  noble  pathos;  as,  when  her  pa 
tience  was  exhausted  by  the  pestering  delvings  and 

370 


SAINT   JOAN    OF   ARC 

gropings  and  searchings  of  her  persecutors  to  find 
out  what  kind  of  devil's  witchcraft  she  had  employed 
to  rouse  the  war  spirit  in  her  timid  soldiers,  she 
burst  out  with,  "What  I  said  was,  'Ride  these  Eng 
lish  down' — and  I  did  it  myself!*'  and  as,  when  in 
sultingly  asked  why  it  was  that  her  standard  had 
place  at  the  crowning  of  the  King  in  the  Cathedral 
of  Rheims  rather  than  the  standards  of  the  other 
captains,  she  uttered  that  touching  speech,  "It  had 
borne  the  burden,  it  had  earned  the  honor"  —a  phrase 
which  fell  from  her  lips  without  premeditation,  yet 
whose  moving  beauty  and  simple  grace  it  would 
bankrupt  the  arts  of  language  to  surpass. 

Although  she  was  on  trial  for  her  life,  she  was  the 
only  witness  called  on  either  side;  the  only  witness 
summoned  to  testify  before  a  packed  jury  commis 
sioned  with  a  definite  task :  to  find  her  guilty,  whether 
she  was  guilty  or  not.  She  must  be  convicted  out  of 
her  own  mouth,  there  being  no  other  way  to  accom 
plish  it.  Every  advantage  that  learning  has  over 
ignorance,  age  over  youth,  experience  over  inex 
perience,  chicane  over  artlessness,  every  trick  and 
trap  and  gin  devisable  by  malice  and  the  cunning  of 
sharp  intellects  practised  in  setting  snares  for  the 
unwary — all  these  were  employed  against  her  with 
out  shame ;  and  when  these  arts  were  one  by  one  de 
feated  by  the  marvelous  intuitions  of  her  alert  and 
penetrating  mind,  Bishop  Cauchon  stooped  to  a  final 
baseness  which  it  degrades  human  speech  to  de 
scribe:  a  priest  who  pretended  to  come  from  the 
region  of  her  own  home  and  to  be  a  pitying  friend 
and  anxious  to  help  her  in  her  sore  need  was  smug- 

371 


MARK    TWAIN 

gled  into  her  cell,  and  he  misused  his  sacred  office  to 
steal  her  confidence;  she  confided  to  him  the  things 
sealed  from  revealment  by  her  Voices,  and  which  her 
prosecutors  had  tried  so  long  in  vain  to  trick  her 
into  betraying.  A  concealed  confederate  set  it  all 
down  and  delivered  it  to  Cauchon,  who  used  Joan's 
secrets,  thus  obtained,  for  her  ruin. 

Throughout  the  Trials,  whatever  the  foredoomed 
witness  said  was  twisted  from  its  true  meaning  when 
possible,  and  made  to  tell  against  her;  and  whenever 
an  answer  of  hers  was  beyond  the  reach  of  twisting 
it  was  not  allowed  to  go  upon  the  record.  It  was 
upon  one  of  these  latter  occasions  that  she  uttered 
that  pathetic  reproach — to  Cauchon:  ''Ah,  you  set 
down  everything  that  is  against  me,  but  you  will  not 
set  down  what  is  for  me." 

That  this  untrained  young  creature's  genius  for 
war  was  wonderful,  and  her  generalship  worthy  to 
rank  with  the  ripe  products  of  a  tried  and  trained 
military  experience,  we  have  the  sworn  testimony 
of  two  of  her  veteran  subordinates — one,  the  Due 
d'Alengon,  the  other  the  greatest  of  the  French  gen 
erals  of  the  time,  Dunois,  Bastard  of  Orleans;  that 
her  genius  was  as  great — possibly  even  greater — in 
the  subtle  warfare  of  the  forum  we  have  for  witness 
the  records  of  the  Rouen  Trials,  that  protracted  ex 
hibition  of  intellectual  fence  maintained  with  credit 
against  the  master-minds  of  France;  that  her  moral 
greatness  was  peer  to  her  intellect  we  call  the  Rouen 
Trials  again  to  witness,  with  their  testimony  to  a 
fortitude  which  patiently  and  steadfastly  endured 
during  twelve  weeks  the  wasting  forces  of  captivity, 

372 


SAINT    JOAN    OF    ARC 

chains,  loneliness,  sickness,  darkness,  hunger,  thirst, 
cold,  shame,  insult,  abuse,  broken  sleep,  treachery, 
ingratitude,  exhausting  sieges  of  cross-examination, 
the  threat  of  torture,  with  the  rack  before  her  and 
the  executioner  standing  ready:  yet  never  surren 
dering,  never  asking  quarter,  the  frail  wreck  of  her 
as  unconquerable  the  last  day  as  was  her  invincible 
spirit  the  first. 

Great  as  she  was  in  so  many  ways,  she  was  per 
haps  even  greatest  of  all  in  the  lofty  things  just 
named — her  patient  endurance,  her  steadfastness, 
her  granite  fortitude.  We  may  not  hope  to  easily 
find  her  mate  and  twin  in  these  majestic  qualities; 
where  we  lift  our  eyes  highest  we  find  only  a  strange 
and  curious  contrast — there  in  the  captive  eagle 
beating  his  broken  wings  on  the  Rock  of  St.  Helena. 


CHAPTER  III 

r*HE  Trials  ended  with  her  condemnation.  But  as 
1  she  had  conceded  nothing,  confessed  nothing,  this 
was  victory  for  her,  defeat  for  Cauchon.  But  his 
evil  resources  were  not  yet  exhausted.  She  was  per 
suaded  to  agree  to  sign  a  paper  of  slight  import,  then 
by  treachery  a  paper  was  substituted  which  con 
tained  a  recantation  and  a  detailed  confession  of 
everything  which  had  been  charged  against  her  dur 
ing  the  Trials  and  denied  and  repudiated  by  her 
persistently  during  the  three  months;  and  this  false 
paper  she  ignorantly  signed.  This  was  a  victory  for 
Cauchon.  He  followed  it  eagerly  and  pitilessly  up 
by  at  once  setting  a  trap  for  her  which  she  could  not 
escape.  When  she  realized  this  she  gave  up  the  long 
struggle,  denounced  the  treason  which  had  been 
practised  against  her,  repudiated  the  false  confes 
sion,  reasserted  the  truth  of  the  testimony  which  she 
had  given  in  the  Trials,  and  went  to  her  martyrdom 
with  the  peace  of  God  in  her  tired  heart,  and  on  hef 
lips  endearing  words  and  loving  prayers  for  the  cut 
she  had  crowned  and  the  nation  of  ingrates  she  had 
saved. 

When  the  fires  rose  about  her  and  she  begged  for 
a  cross  for  her  dying  lips  to  kiss,  it  was  not  a  friend 
but  an  enemy,  not  a  Frenchman  but  an  alien,  not 

374 


SAINT    JOAN    OF    ARC 

a  comrade  in  arms  but  an  English  soldier,  that  an 
swered  that  pathetic  prayer.  He  broke  a  stick 
across  his  knee,  bound  the  pieces  together  in  the 
form  of  the  symbol  she  so  loved,  and  gave  it  her; 
and  his  gentle  deed  is  not  forgotten,  nor  will  be. 
25 


CHAPTER  IV 

TWENTY-FIVE  years  afterward  the  Process  of 
Rehabilitation  was  instituted,  there  being  a  grow 
ing  doubt  as  to  the  validity  of  a  sovereignty  that  had 
been  rescued  and  set  upon  its  feet  by  a  person  who 
had  been  proven  by  the  Church  to  be  a  witch  and 
a  familiar  of  evil  spirits.  Joan's  old  generals,  her 
secretary,  several  aged  relations  and  other  villagers 
of  Domremy,  surviving  judges  and  secretaries  of  the 
Rouen  and  Poitiers  Processes — a  cloud  of  witnesses, 
some  of  whom  had  been  her  enemies  and  persecutors 
—came  and  made  oath  and  testified ;  and  what  they 
said  was  written  down.  In  that  sworn  testimony 
the  moving  and  beautiful  history  of  Joan  of  Arc  is 
laid  bare,  from  her  childhood  to  her  martyrdom. 
From  the  verdict  she  rises  stainlessly  pure,  in  mind 
and  heart,  in  speech  and  deed  and  spirit,  and  will  so 
endure  to  the  end  of  time. 

She  is  the  Wonder  of  the  Ages.  And  when  we 
consider  her  origin,  her  early  circumstances,  her  sex, 
and  that  she  did  all  the  things  upon  which  her 
renown  rests  while  she  was  still  a  young  girl,  we 
recognize  that  while  our  race  continues  she  will  be 
also  the  Riddle  of  the  Ages.  When  we  set  about 
accounting  for  a  Napoleon  or  a  Shakespeare  or  a 
Raphael  or  a  Wagner  or  an  Edison  or  other  extraor- 

376 


SAINT    JOAN    OF    ARC 

dinar y  person,  we  understand  that  the  measure  of 
his  talent  will  not  explain  the  whole  result,  nor  even 
the  largest  part  of  it;  no,  it  is  the  atmosphere  in 
which  the  talent  was  cradled  that  explains;  it  is  the 
training  which  it  received  while  it  grew,  the  nurture 
it  got  from  reading,  study,  example,  the  encourage 
ment  it  gathered  from  self -recognition  and  recogni 
tion  from  the  outside  at  each  stage  of  its  develop 
ment  :  when  we  know  all  these  details,  then  we  know 
why  the  man  was  ready  when  his  opportunity  came. 
We  should  expect  Edison's  surroundings  and  atmos 
phere  to  have  the  largest  share  in  discovering  him 
to  himself  and  to  the  world;  and  we  should  expect 
him  to  live  and  die  undiscovered  in  a  land  where  an 
inventor  could  find  no  comradeship,  no  sympathy, 
no  ambition-rousing  atmosphere  of  recognition  and 
applause — Dahomey,  for  instance.  Dahomey  could 
not  find  an  Edison  out ;  in  Dahomey  an  Edison  could 
not  find  himself  out.  Broadly  speaking,  genius  is 
not  born  with  sight,  but  blind;  and  it  is  not  itself 
that  opens  its  eyes,  but  the  subtle  influences  of  a 
myriad  of  stimulating  exterior  circumstances. 

We  all  knowr  this  to  be  not  a  guess,  but  a  mere 
commonplace  fact,  a  truism.  Lorraine  was  Joan  of 
Arc's  Dahomey.  And  there  the  Riddle  confronts  us. 
We  can  understand  how  she  could  be  born  with 
military  genius,  with  leonine  courage,  with  incom 
parable  fortitude,  with  a  mind  which  was  in  several 
particulars  a  prodigy — a  mind  which  included  among 
its  specialties  the  lawyer's  gift  of  detecting  traps  laid 
by  the  adversary  in  cunning  and  treacherous  ar 
rangements  of  seemingly  innocent  words,  the  orator's 
25  377 


MARK    TWAIN 

gift  of  eloquence,  the  advocate's  gift  of  presenting  a 
case  in  clear  and  compact  form,  the  judge's  gift  of 
sorting  and  weighing  evidence,  and  finally,  some 
thing  recognizable  as  more  than  a  mere  trace  of  the 
statesman's  gift  of  understanding  a  political  situation 
and  how  to  make  profitable  use  of  such  opportunities 
as  it  offers;  we  can  comprehend  how  she  could  be 
born  with  these  great  qualities,  but  we  cannot  com 
prehend  how  they  became  immediately  usable  and 
effective  without  the  developing  forces  of  a  sympa 
thetic  atmosphere  and  the  training  which  comes  of 
teaching,  study,  practice — years  of  practice — and  the 
crowning  and  perfecting  help  of  a  thousand  mistakes. 
We  can  understand  how  the  possibilities  of  the 
future  perfect  peach  are  all  lying  hid  in  the  humble 
bitter-almond,  but  we  cannot  conceive  of  the  peach 
springing  directly  from  the  almond  without  the  in 
tervening  long  seasons  of  patient  cultivation  and 
development.  Out  of  a  cattle-pasturing  peasant 
village  lost  in  the  remotenesses  of  an  unvisited  wil 
derness  and  atrophied  with  ages  of  stupefaction  and 
ignorance  we  cannot  see  a  Joan  of  Arc  issue  equipped 
to  the  last  detail  for  her  amazing  career  and  hope  to 
be  able  to  explain  the  riddle  of  it,  labor  at  it  as 
we  may. 

It  is  beyond  us.  All  the  rules  fail  in  this  girl's 
case.  In  the  world's  history  she  stands  alone — quite 
alone.  Others  have  been  great  in  their  first  public 
exhibitions  of  generalship,  valor,  legal  talent,  diplo 
macy,  fortitude;  but  always  their  previous  years  and 
associations  had  been  in  a  larger  or  smaller  degree  a 
preparation  for  these  things.  There  have  been  no 

378 


SAINT    JOAN    OF   ARC 

exceptions  to  the  rule.  But  Joan  was  competent  in 
a  law  case  at  sixteen  without  ever  having  seen  a  law- 
book  or  a  court-house  before ;  she  had  no  training  in 
soldiership  and  no  associations  with  it,  yet  she  was  a 
competent  general  in  her  first  campaign;  she  was 
brave  in  her  first  battle,  yet  her  courage  had  had  no 
education — not  even  the  education  which  a  boy's 
courage  gets  from  never-ceasing  reminders  that  it  is 
not  permissible  in  a  boy  to  be  a  coward,  but  only  in 
a  girl;  friendless,  alone,  ignorant,  in  the  blossom  of 
her  youth,  she  sat  week  after  week,  a  prisoner  in 
chains,  before  her  assemblage  of  judges,  enemies 
hunting  her  to  her  death,  the  ablest  minds  in  France, 
and  answered  them  out  of  an  untaught  wisdom 
which  overmatched  their  learning,  baffled  their  tricks 
and  treacheries  with  a  native  sagacity  which  com 
pelled  their  wonder,  and  scored  every  day  a  victory 
against  these  incredible  odds  and  camped  unchal 
lenged  on  the  field.  In  the  history  of  the  human  in 
tellect,  untrained,  inexperienced,  and  using  only  its 
birthright  equipment  of  untried  capacities,  there  is 
nothing  which  approaches  this.  Joan  of  Arc  stands*^ 
alone,  and  must  continue  to  stand  alone,  by  reason 
of  the  unfellowed  fact  that  in  the  things  wherein  she 
was  great  she  was  so  without  shade  or  suggestion  of 
help  from  preparatory  teaching,  practice,  environ 
ment,  or  experience.  There  is  no  one  to  compare 
her  with,  none  to  measure  her  by;  for  all  others 
among  the  illustrious  grew  toward  their  high  place 
in  an  atmosphere  and  surroundings  which  discovered 
their  gift  to  them  and  nourished  it  and  promoted  it, 
intentionally  or  unconsciously.  There  have  been 

379 


MARK    TWAIN 

other  young  generals,  but  they  were  not  girls;  young 
generals,  but  they  had  been  soldiers  before  they  were 
generals:  she  began  as  a  general;  she  commanded 
the  first  army  she  ever  saw;  she  led  it  from  victory 
to  victory,  and  never  lost  a  battle  with  it;  there 
have  been  young  commanders-in-chief,  but  none  so 
young  as  she :  she  is  the  only  soldier  in  history  who 
has  held  the  supreme  command  of  a  nation's  armies 
at  the  age  of  seventeen. 

Her  history  has  still  another  feature  which  sets  her 
apart  and  leaves  her  without  fellow  or  competitor: 
there  have  been  many  uninspired  prophets,  but  she 
was  the  only  one  who  ever  ventured  the  daring  de 
tail  of  naming,  along  with  a  foretold  event,  the 
event's  precise  nature,  the  special  time-limit  within 
which  it  would  occur,  and  the  place — and  scored  ful 
filment.  At  Vaucouleurs  she  said  she  must  go  to  the 
King  and  be  made  his  general,  and  break  the  Eng 
lish  power,  and  crown  her  sovereign — "at  Rheims." 
It  all  happened.  It  was  all  to  happen  "next  year" 
— and  it  did.  She  foretold  her  first  wound  and  its 
character  and  date  a  month  in  advance,  and  the 
prophecy  was  recorded  in  a  public  record-book  three 
weeks  in  advance.  She  repeated  it  the  morning  of 
the  date  named,  and  it  was  fulfilled  before  night. 
At  Tours  she  foretold  the  limit  of  her  military  career 
— saying  it  would  end  in  one  year  from  the  time  of 
its  utterance — and  she  was  right.  She  foretold  her 
martyrdom — using  that  word,  and  naming  a  time 
three  months  away — and  again  she  was  right.  At  a 
time  when  France  seemed  hopelessly  and  perma 
nently  in  the  hands  of  the  English  she  twice  asserted 

380 


SAINT   JOAN    OF    ARC 

in  her  prison  before  her  judges  that  within  seven 
years  the  English  would  meet  with  a  mightier  dis 
aster  than  had  been  the  fall  of  Orleans :  it  happened 
within  five — the  fall  of  Paris.  Other  prophecies  of 
hers  came  true,  both  as  to  the  event  named  and  the 
time-limit  prescribed. 

She  was  deeply  religious,  and  believed  that  she  had 
daily  speech  with  angels;  that  she  saw  them  face  to 
face,  and  that  they  counseled  her,  comforted  and 
heartened  her,  and  brought  commands  to  her  direct 
from  God.  She  had  a  childlike  faith  in  the  heavenly 
origin  of  her  apparitions  and  her  Voices,  and  not  any 
threat  of  any  form  of  death  was  able  to  frighten  it 
out  of  her  loyal  heart.  She  was  a  beautiful  and 
simple  and  lovable  character.  In  the  records  of  the 
Trials  this  comes  out  in  clear  and  shining  detail. 
She  wras  gentle  and  winning  and  affectionate;  she 
loved  her  home  and  friends  and  her  village  life;  she 
was  miserable  in  the  presence  of  pain  and  suffering; 
she  was  full  of  compassion :  on  the  field  of  her  most 
vsplendid  victory  she  forgot  her  triumphs  to  hold  in 
her  lap  the  head  of  a  dying  enemy  and  comfort  his 
passing  spirit  with  pitying  words;  in  an  age  when  it 
was  common  to  slaughter  prisoners  she  stood  daunt 
less  between  hers  and  harm,  and  saved  them  alive; 
she  was  forgiving,  generous,  unselfish,  magnanimous; 
she  was  pure  from  all  spot  or  stain  of  baseness. 
And  always  she  wras  a  girl;  and  dear  and  worshipful, 
as  is  meet  for  that  estate :  when  she  fell  wounded,  the 
first  time,  she  was  frightened,  and  cried  when  she 
saw  her  blood  gushing  from  her  breast ;  but  she  was 
Joan  of  Arc !  and  when  presently  she  found  that  her 

381 


MARK    TWAIN 

generals  were  sounding  the  retreat,  she  staggered  to 
her  feet  and  led  the  assault  again  and  took  that 
place  by  storm. 

There  is  no  blemish  in  that  rounded  and  beautiful 
character. 

How  strange  it  is! — that  almost  invariably  the 
artist  remembers  only  one  detail — one  minor  and 
meaningless  detail  of  the  personality  of  Joan  of  Arc : 
to  wit,  that  she  was  a  peasant  girl — and  forgets  all 
the  rest ;  and  so  he  paints  her  as  a  strapping  middle- 
aged  fish  woman,  with  costume  to  match,  and  in  her 
face  the  spirituality  of  a  ham.  He  is  slave  to  his 
one  idea,  and  forgets  to  observe  that  the  supremely 
great  souls  are  never  lodged  in  gross  bodies.  No 
brawn,  no  muscle,  could  endure  the  work  that  their 
bodies  must  do;  they  do  their  miracles  by  the  spirit, 
which  has  fifty  times  the  strength  and  staying- 
power  of  brawn  and  muscle.  The  Napoleons  are 
little,  not  big;  and  they  work  twenty  hours  in  the 
twenty-four,  and  come  up  fresh,  while  the  big  soldiers 
with  the  little  hearts  faint  around  them  with  fatigue. 
We  know  what  Joan  of  Arc  was  like,  without  asking 
—merely  by  what  she  did.  The  artist  should  paint 
her  spirit — then  he  could  not  fail  to  paint  her  body 
aright.  She  would  rise  before  us,  then,  a  vision  to 
win  us,  not  repel :  a  lithe  young  slender  figure,  instinct 
with  "the  unbought  grace  of  youth,"  dear  and 
bonny  and  lovable,  the  face  beautiful,  and  trans 
figured  with  the  light  of  that  lustrous  intellect  and 
the  fires  of  that  unquenchable  spirit. 

Taking  into  account,  as  I  have  suggested  before, 
all  the  circumstances — her  origin,  youth,  sex,  illit- 

382 


SAINT    JOAN    OF    ARC 

eracy,  early  environment,  and  the  obstructing  con 
ditions  under  which  she  exploited  her  high  gifts  and 
made  her  conquests  in  the  field  and  before  the  courts 
that  tried  her  for  her  life — she  is  easily  and  by  far 
the  most  extraordinary  person  the  human  race  has 
ever  produced. 


IN    MEMORIAM 

OLIVIA    SUSAN    CLEMENS 

DIED  AUGUST  18,  1896;  AGED  24 

IN  a  fair  valley — oh,  how  long  ago,  how  long  ago! 
Where  all  the  broad  expanse  was  clothed  in  vines 
And  fruitful  fields  and  meadows  starred  with  flowers, 
And  clear  streams  wandered  at  their  idle  will, 
And  still  lakes  slept,  their  burnished  surfaces 
A  dream  of  painted  clouds,  and  soft  airs 
Went  whispering  with  odorous  breath, 
And  all  was  peace — in  that  fair  vale, 
Shut  from  the  troubled  world,  a  nameless  hamlet 
drowsed. 

Hard  by,  apart,  a  temple  stood; 
And  strangers  from  the  outer  world 
Passing,  noted  it  with  tired  eyes, 
And  seeing,  saw  it  not : 
A  glimpse  of  its  fair  form — an  answering  momentary 

thrill- 
And  they  passed  on,  careless  and  unaware. 

They  could  not  know  the  cunning  of  its  make; 
They  could  not  know  the  secret  shut  up  in  its  heart ; 
Only  the  dwellers  of  the  hamlet  knew: 

knew  that  what  seemed  brass  was  gold; 


IN    MEMORIAM 

What  marble  seemed,  was  ivory; 

The  glories  that  enriched  the  milky  surfaces — 

The  trailing  vines,  and  interwoven  flowers, 

And  tropic  birds  awing,  clothed  all  in  tinted  fire — 

They   knew  for  what   they   were,   not   what   they 

seemed : 
Incrus tings  all  of  gems,  not  perishable  splendors  of 

the  brush. 

They  knew  the  secret  spot  where  one  must  stand — 
They  knew  the  surest  hour,  the  proper  slant  of  sun- 
To  gather  in,  unmarred,  undimmed, 
The  vision  of  the  fane  in  all  its  fairy  grace, 
A  fainting  dream  against  the  opal  sky. 

And  more  than  this.     They  knew 
That  in  the  temple's  inmost  place  a  spirit  dwelt, 
Made  all  of  light ! 

For  glimpses  of  it  they  had  caught 
Beyond  the  curtains  when  the  priests 
That  served  the  altar  came  and  went. 

All  loved  that  light  and  held  it  dear 
That  had  this  partial  grace; 
But  the  adoring  priests  alone  who  lived 
By  day  and  night  submerged  in  its  immortal  glow 
Knew  all  its  power  and  depth,  and  could  appraise 

the  loss 
If  it  should  fade  and  fail  and  come  no  more. 

All  this  was  long  ago — so  long  ago ! 
The  light  burned  on;  and  they  that  worshiped  it, 
And  they  that  caught  its  flash  at  intervals  and  held 

it  dear, 


MARK    TWAIN 

Contented  lived  in  its  secure  possession.     Ah, 
How  long  ago  it  was ! 

And  then  when  they 

Were  nothing  fearing,  and  God's  peace  was  in  the  air, 
And  none  was  prophesying  harm — 
The  vast  disaster  fell : 

Where  stood  the  temple  when  the  sun  went  down, 
Was  vacant  desert  when  it  rose  again ! 

Ah,  yes !     'Tis  ages  since  it  chanced ! 

So  long  ago  it  was, 
That  from  the  memory  of  the  hamlet-folk  the  Light 

has  passed — 

They  scarce  believing,  now,  that  once  it  was, 
Or,  if  believing,  yet  not  missing  it, 
And  reconciled  to  have  it  gone. 

Not  so  the  priests !    Oh,  not  so 
The  stricken  ones  that  served  it  day  and  night, 
Adoring  it,  abiding  in  the  healing  of  its  peace : 
They  stand,  yet,  where  erst  they  stood 
Speechless  in  that  dim  morning  long  ago; 
And  still  they  gaze,  as  then  they  gazed, 
And  murmur,  "It  will  come  again; 
It  knows  our  pain — it  knows — it  knows — 
Ah,  surely  it  will  come  again.*' 

S.  L.  C. 
LAKE  LUCERNE,  August  18,  1897. 


MARK   TWAIN 
A    BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH 

BY  SAMUEL  E.  MOFFETT 

IN  1835  the  creation  of  the  Western  empire  of 
America  had  just  begun.  In  the  whole  region 
west  of  the  Mississippi,  which  now  contains  twenty- 
one  million  people — nearly  twice  the  entire  popula 
tion  of  the  United  States  at  that  time — there  were 
less  than  half  a  million  white  inhabitants.  There 
were  only  two  states  beyond  the  great  river,  Lou 
isiana  and  Missouri.  There  were  only  two  consider 
able  groups  of  population,  one  about  New  Orleans, 
the  other  about  St.  Louis.  If  we  omit  New  Orleans, 
which  is  east  of  the  river,  there  was  only  one  place 
in  all  that  vast  domain  with  any  pretension  to  be 
called  a  city.  That  was  St.  Louis,  and  that  me 
tropolis,  the  wonder  and  pride  of  all  the  Western 
country,  had  no  more  than  ten  thousand  inhabitants. 
It  was  in  this  frontier  region,  on  the  extreme  fringe 
of  settlement  ''that  just  divides  the  desert  from  the 
sown,"  that  Samuel  Langhorne  Clemens  was  born, 
November  30,  1835,  in  the  hamlet  of  Florida,  Mis 
souri.  His  parents  had  come  there  to  be  in  the 
thick  of  the  Western  boom,  and  by  a  fate  for  which 
no  lack  of  foresight  on  their  part  was  to  blame, 
they  found  themselves  in  a  place  which  succeeded 

387 


MARK   TWAIN 

in  accumulating  one  hundred  and  twenty-five  in 
habitants  in  the  next  sixty  years.  When  we  read  of 
the  westward  sweep  of  population  and  wealth  in  the 
United  States,  it  seems  as  if  those  who  were  in  the 
van  of  that  movement  must  have  been  inevitably 
carried  on  to  fortune.  But  that  was  a  tide  full  of 
eddies  and  back-currents,  and  Mark  Twain's  parents 
possessed  a  faculty  for  finding  them  that  appears 
nothing  less  than  miraculous.  The  whole  Western 
empire  was  before  them  where  to  choose.  They 
could  have  bought  the  entire  site  of  Chicago  for  a 
pair  of  boots.  They  could  have  taken  up  a  farm 
within  the  present  city  limits  of  St.  Louis.  What 
they  actually  did  was  to  live  for  a  time  in  Columbia, 
Kentucky,  with  a  small  property  in  land,  and  six 
inherited  slaves,  then  to  move  to  Jamestown,  on  the 
Cumberland  plateau  of  Tennessee,  a  place  that  was 
then  no  farther  removed  from  the  currents  of  the 
world's  life  than  Uganda,  but  which  no  resident  of 
that  or  any  other  part  of  Central  Africa  would  now 
regard  as  a  serious  competitor,  and  next  to  migrate 
to  Missouri,  passing  St.  Louis  and  settling  first  in 
Florida,  and  afterward  in  Hannibal.  But  when  the 
whole  map  was  blank  the  promise  of  fortune  glowed 
as  rosily  in  these  regions  as  anywhere  else.  Florida 
had  great  expectations  when  Jackson  was  President. 
When  John  Marshall  Clemens  took  up  eighty  thou 
sand  acres  of  land  in  Tennessee,  he  thought  he  had 
established  his  children  as  territorial  magnates. 
That  phantom  vision  of  wealth  furnished  later  one 
of  the  motives  of  The  Gilded  Age.  It  conferred 
no  other  benefit. 

388 


A    BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH 

If  Samuel  Clemens  missed  a  fortune,  he  inherited 
good  blood.  On  both  sides  his  family  had  been 
settled  in  the  South  since  early  colonial  times.  His 
father,  John  Marshall  Clemens,  of  Virginia,  was  a 
descendant  of  Gregory  Clemens,  who  became  one  of 
the  judges  that  condemned  Charles  I.  to  death,  was 
excepted  from  the  amnesty  after  the  Restoration  in 
consequence,  and  lost  his  head.  A  cousin  of  John 
M.  Clemens,  Jeremiah  Clemens,  represented  Ala 
bama  in  the  United  States  Senate  from  1849  to  1853. 

Through  his  mother,  Jane  Lampton  (Lambton), 
the  boy  was  descended  from  the  Lambtons  of  Dur 
ham,  whose  modern  English  representatives  still 
possess  the  lands  held  by  their  ancestors  of  the  same 
name  since  the  twelfth  century.  Some  of  her  fore 
bears  on  the  maternal  side,  the  Montgomerys,  went 
with  Daniel  Boone  to  Kentucky,  and  were  in  the 
thick  of  the  romantic  and  tragic  events  that  accom 
panied  the  settlement  of  the  ''Dark  and  Bloody 
Ground,"  and  she  herself  was  born  there  twenty- 
nine  years  after  the  first  log  cabin  was  built  within 
the  limits  of  the  present  commonwealth.  She  was 
one  of  the  earliest,  prettiest,  and  brightest  of  the 
many  belles  that  have  given  Kentucky  such  an  en 
viable  reputation  as  a  nursery  of  fair  women,  and 
her  vivacity  and  wit  left  no  doubt  in  the  minds  of 
her  friends  concerning  the  source  of  her  son's  genius. 

John  Marshall  Clemens,  who  had  been  trained  for 
the  bar  in  Virginia,  served  for  some  years  as  a  mag 
istrate  at  Hannibal,  holding  for  a  time  the  position 
of  county  judge.  With  his  death,  in  March,  1847, 
Mark  Twain's  formal  education  came  to  an  end,  and 

389 


MARK    TWAIN 

his  education  in  real  life  began.  He  had  always  been 
a  delicate  boy,  and  his  father,  in  consequence,  had 
been  lenient  in  the  matter  of  enforcing  attendance  at 
school,  although  he  had  been  profoundly  anxious 
that  his  children  should  be  well  educated.  His  wish 
was  fulfilled,  although  not  in  the  way  he  had  ex 
pected.  It  is  a  fortunate  thing  for  literature  that 
Mark  Twain  was  never  ground  into  smooth  uni 
formity  under  the  scholastic  emery  wheel.  He  has 
made  the  world  his  university,  and  in  men,  and 
books,  and  strange  places,  and  all  the  phases  of  an 
infinitely  varied  life,  has  built  an  education  broad 
and  deep,  on  the  foundations  of  an  undisturbed  in 
dividuality. 

His  high  school  was  a  village  printing-office,  where 
his  elder  brother  Orion  was  conducting  a  newspaper. 
The  thirteen-year-old  boy  served  in  all  capacities, 
and  in  the  occasional  absences  of  his  chief  he  reveled 
in  personal  journalism,  with  original  illustrations 
hacked  on  wooden  blocks  with  a  jack-knife,  to  an 
extent  that  riveted  the  town's  attention,  "but  not  its 
admiration,"  as  his  brother  plaintively  confessed. 
The  editor  spoke  with  feeling,  for  he  had  to  take  the 
consequences  of  these  exploits  on  his  return. 

From  his  earliest  childhood  young  Clemens  had 
been  of  an  adventurous  disposition.  Before  he  was 
thirteen,  he  had  been  extracted  three  times  from  the 
Mississippi,  and  six  times  from  Bear  Creek,  in  a  sub 
stantially  drowned  condition,  but  his  mother,  with 
the  high  confidence  in  his  future  that  never  deserted 
her,  merely  remarked:  " People  who  are  born  to  be 
hanged  are  safe  in  the  water,"  By  1853  the  Han- 


A    BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH 

nibal  tether  had  become  too  short  for  him.  He 
disappeared  from  home  and  wandered  from  one 
Eastern  printing-office  to  another.  He  saw  the 
World's  Fair  at  New  York,  and  other  marvels, 
and  supported  himself  by  setting  type.  At  the 
end  of  this  Wanderjahr,  financial  stress  drove  him 
back  to  his  family.  He  lived  at  St.  Louis,  Mus- 
catine,  and  Keokuk  until  1857,  when  he  induced 
the  great  Horace  Bixby  to  teach  him  the  mystery 
of  steamboat  -  piloting.  The  charm  of  all  this 
warm,  indolent  existence  in  "the  sleepy  river  towns 
has  colored  his  whole  subsequent  life.  In  Tom 
Sawyer,  Huckleberry  Finn,  Life  on  the  Mississippi, 
and  Pudd'nhead  Wilson,  every  phase  of  that  van 
ished  estate  is  lovingly  dwelt  upon. 

Native  character  will  always  make  itself  felt,  but 
one  may  wonder  whether  Mark  Twain's  humor  would 
have  developed  in  quite  so  sympathetic  and  buoyant 
a  vein  if  he  had  been  brought  up  in  Ecclefechan 
instead  of  in  Hannibal,  and  whether  Carlyle  might 
not  have  been  a  little  more  human  if  he  had  spent 
his  boyhood  in  Hannibal  instead  of  in  Ecclefechan. 

A  Mississippi  pilot  in  the  later  fifties  was  a  per 
sonage  of  imposing  grandeur.  He  was  a  miracle 
of  attainments;  he  was  the  absolute  master  of  his 
boat  while  it  was  under  way,  and  just  before  his 
fall  he  commanded  a  salary  precisely  equal  to  that 
earned  at  that  time  by  the  Vice-President  of  the 
United  States  or  a  Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court. 
The  best  proof  of  the  superlative  majesty  and  desira 
bility  of  his  position  is  the  fact  that  Samuel  Clemens 
deliberately  subjected  himself  to  the  incredible  labor 

;6  391 


MARK    TWAIN 

necessary  to  attain  it — a  labor  compared  with  which 
the  efforts  needed  to  acquire  the  degree  of  Doctor  of 
Philosophy  at  a  university  are  as  light  as  a  summer 
course  of  modern  novels.  To  appreciate  the  full 
meaning  of  a  pilot's  marvelous  education,  one  must 
read  the  whole  of  Life  on  the  Mississippi,  but  this 
extract  may  give  a  partial  idea  of  a  single  feature  of 
that  training — the  cultivation  of  the  memory: 

"First  of  all,  there  is  one  faculty  which  a  pilot 
must  incessantly  cultivate  until  he  has  brought  it 
to  absolute  perfection.  Nothing  short  of  perfection 
will  do.  That  faculty  is  memory.  He  cannot  stop 
with  merely  thinking  a  thing  is  so  and  so;  he  must 
know  it;  for  this  is  eminently  one  of  the  exact 
sciences.  With  what  scorn  a  pilot  was  looked  upon, 
in  the  old  times,  if  he  ever  ventured  to  deal  in  that 
feeble  phrase  'I  think/  instead  of  the  vigorous  one 
'I  know'!  One  cannot  easily  realize  what  a  tre 
mendous  thing  it  is  to  know  every  trivial  detail  of 
twelve  hundred  miles  of  river,  and  know  it  with 
absolute  exactness.  If  you  will  take  the  longest 
street  in  New  York,  and  travel  up  and  down  it, 
conning  its  features  patiently  until  you  know  every 
house,  and  window,  and  door,  and  lamp-post,  and 
big  and  little  sign  by  heart,  and  know  them  so 
accurately  that  you  can  instantly  name  the  one  you 
are  abreast  of  when  you  are  set  down  at  random  in 
that  street  in  the  middle  of  an  inky  black  night,  you 
will  then  have  a  tolerable  notion  of  the  amount  and 
the  exactness  of  a  pilot's  knowledge  who  carries  the 
Mississippi  River  in  his  head.  And  then,  if  you  will 
go  on  until  you  know  every  street-crossing,  the 

392 


A    BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH 

character,  size,  and  position  of  the  crossing-stones, 
and  the  varying  depth  of  mud  in  each  of  those 
numberless  places,  you  will  have  some  idea  of  what 
the  pilot  must  know  in  order  to  keep  a  Mississippi 
steamer  out  of  trouble.  Next,  if  you  will  take  half 
of  the  signs  in  that  long  street  and  change  their  places 
once  a  month,  and  still  manage  to  know  their  new 
positions  accurately  on  dark  nights,  and  keep  up  with 
these  repeated  changes  without  making  any  mistakes, 
you  will  understand  what  is  required  of  a  pilot's 
peerless  memory  by  the  fickle  Mississippi. 

"I  think  a  pilot's  memory  is  about  the  most 
wonderful  thing  in  the  world.  To  know  the  Old  and 
New  Testaments  by  heart,  and  be  able  to  recite 
them  glibly,  forward  or  backward,  or  begin  at  random 
anywhere  in  the  book  and  recite  both  ways,  and 
never  trip  or  make  a  mistake,  is  no  extravagant  mass 
of  knowledge,  and  no  marvelous  facility,  compared 
to  a  pilot's  massed  knowledge  of  the  Mississippi,  and 
his  marvelous  facility  in  handling  it.  ... 

"And  how  easily  and  comfortably  the  pilot's  mem 
ory  does  its  work;  how  placidly  effortless  is  its  way; 
how  unconsciously  it  lays  up  its  vast  stores,  hour  by 
hour,  day  by  day,  and  never  loses  or  mislays  a  single 
valuable  package  of  them  all!  Take  an  instance. 
Let  a  leadsman  say:  'Half  twain!  half  twain!  half 
twain!  half  twain!  half  twain!'  until  it  becomes  as 
monotonous  as  the  ticking  of  a  clock;  let  conversa 
tion  be  going  on  all  the  time,  and  the  pilot  be  doing 
his  share  of  the  talking,  and  no  longer  consciously 
listening  to  the  leadsman;  and  in  the  midst  of  this 
endless  string  of  half  twains  let  a  single  'quarter 

26  393 


MARK    TWAIN 

twain!'  be  interjected,  without  emphasis,  and  then 
the  half -twain  cry  go  on  again,  just  as  before:  two 
or  three  weeks  later  that  pilot  can  describe  with 
precision  the  boat's  position  in  the  river  when  that 
quarter  twain  was  uttered,  and  give  you  such  a  lot 
of  head  marks,  stern  marks,  and  side  marks  to  guide 
you  that  you  ought  to  be  able  to  take  the  boat  there 
and  put  her  in  that  same  spot  again  yourself!  The 
cry  of  'Quarter  twain!'  did  not  really  take  his  mind 
from  his  talk,  but  his  trained  faculties  instantly 
photographed  the  bearings,  noted  the  change  of 
depth,  and  laid  up  the  important  details  for  future 
reference  without  requiring  any  assistance  from  him 
in  the  matter." 

Young  Clemens  went  through  all  that  appalling 
training,  stored  away  in  his  head  the  bewildering 
mass  of  knowledge  a  pilot's  duties  required,  received 
the  license  that  was  the  diploma  of  the  river  uni 
versity,  entered  into  regular  employment,  and  re 
garded  himself  as  established  for  life,  when  the 
outbreak  of  the  Civil  War  wiped  out  his  occupation 
at  a  stroke,  and  made  his  weary  apprenticeship  a 
useless  labor.  The  commercial  navigation  of  the 
lower  Mississippi  was  stopped  by  a  line  of  fire,  and 
black,  squat  gunboats,  their  sloping  sides  plated  with 
railroad  iron,  took  the  place  of  the  gorgeous  white 
side- wheelers,  whose  pilots  had  been  the  envied 
aristocrats  of  the  river  towns.  Clemens  was  in 
New  Orleans  when  Louisiana  seceded,  and  started 
North  the  next  day.  The  boat  ran  a  blockade 
every  day  of  her  trip,  and  on  the  last  night  of 
the  voyage  the  batteries  at  the  Jefferson  barracks, 

394 


A    BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH 

just  below  St.  Louis,  fired  two  shots  through  her 
chimneys. 

Brought  up  in  a  slaveholding  atmosphere,  Mark 
Twain  naturally  sympathized  at  first  with  the  South. 
In  June  he  joined  the  Confederates  in  Rails  County, 
Missouri,  as  a  second  lieutenant  under  General 
Tom  Harris.  His  military  career  lasted  for  two 
weeks.  Narrowly  missing  the  distinction  of  being 
captured  by  Colonel  Ulysses  S.  Grant,  he  resigned, 
explaining  that  he  had  become  "  incapacitated  by 
fatigue"  through  persistent  retreating.  In  his  sub 
sequent  writings  he  has  always  treated  his  brief 
experience  of  warfare  as  a  burlesque  episode,  although 
the  official  reports  and  correspondence  of  the  Con 
federate  commanders  speak  very  respectfully  of  the 
work  of  the  raw  countrymen  of  the  Harris  Brigade. 
The  elder  Clemens  brother,  Orion,  was  persona  grata 
to  the  Administration  of  President  Lincoln,  and 
received  in  consequence  an  appointment  as  the  first 
Secretary  of  the  new  Territory  of  Nevada.  He 
offered  his  speedily  reconstructed  junior  the  position 
of  private  secretary  to  himself,  "with  nothing  to  do 
and  no  salary."  The  two  crossed  the  plains  in  the 
Overland  coach  in  eighteen  days — almost  precisely 
the  time  it  will  take  to  go  from  New  York  to  Vladi 
vostok  when  the  Trans-Siberian  Railway  is  finished. 

A  year  of  variegated  fortune-hunting  among  the 
silver-mines  of  the  Humboldt  and  Esmeralda  regions 
followed.  Occasional  letters  written  during  this 
time  to  the  leading  newspaper  of  the  territory,  the 
Virginia  City  Territorial  Enterprise,  attracted  the 
attention  of  the  proprietor,  Mr.  J.  T.  Goodman,  a 

395 


MARK    TWAIN 

man  of  keen  and  unerring  literary  instinct,  and  he 
offered  the  writer  the  position  of  local  editor  on  his 
staff.  With  the  duties  of  this  place  were  combined 
those  of  legislative  correspondent  at  Carson  City,  the 
capitaL  The  work  of  young  Clemens  created  a  sen 
sation  among  the  lawmakers.  He  wrote  a  weekly 
letter,  spined  with  barbed  personalities.  It  ap 
peared  every  Sunday,  and  on  Mondays  the  legis 
lative  business  was  obstructed  with  the  complaints 
of  members  who  rose  to  questions  of  privilege,  and 
expressed  their  opinion  of  the  correspondent  with 
acerbity.  This  encouraged  him  to  give  his  letters 
more  individuality  by  signing  them.  For  this  pur 
pose  he  adopted  the  old  Mississippi  leadsman's  call 
for  two  fathoms  (twelve  feet) — "Mark  Twain." 

At  that  particular  period  dueling  was  a  passing 
fashion  on  the  Comstock.  The  refinements  of 
Parisian  civilization  had  not  penetrated  there,  and  a 
Washoe-duel  seldom  left  more  than  one  survivor. 
The  weapons  were  always  Colt's  navy  revolvers — 
distance,  fifteen  paces;  fire  and  advance;  six  shots 
allowed.  Mark  Twain  became  involved  in  a  quarrel 
with  Mr.  Laird,  the  editor  of  the  Virginia  Union,  and 
the  situation  seemed  to  call  for  a  duel.  Neither 
combatant  was  an  expert  with  the  pistol,  but  Mark 
Twain  was  fortunate  enough  to  have  a  second  who 
was.  The  men  were  practising  in  adjacent  gorges, 
Mr.  Laird  doing  fairly  well,  and  his  opponent  hitting 
everything  but  the  mark.  A  small  bird  lit  on  a  sage- 
bush  thirty  yards  away,  and  Mark  Twain's  second 
fired  and  knocked  off  its  head.  At  that  moment  the 
enemy  came  over  the  ridge,  saw  the  dead  bird, 

396 


A    BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH 

observed  the  distance,  and  learned  from  Gillis,  the 
humorist's  second,  that  the  feat  had  been  performed 
by  Mark  Twain,  for  whom  such  an  exploit  was 
nothing  remarkable.  They  withdrew  for  consulta 
tion,  and  then  offered  a  formal  apology,  after  which 
peace  was  restored,  leaving  Mark  Twain  with  the 
honors  of  war. 

However,  this  incident  was  the  means  of  effecting 
another  change  in  his  life.  There  was  a  new  law 
which  prescribed  two  years'  imprisonment  for  any 
one  who  should  send,  carry,  or  accept  a  challenge. 
The  fame  of  the  proposed  duel  had  reached  the 
capital,  eighteen  miles  away,  and  the  governor 
wrathfully  gave  orders  for  the  arrest  of  all  concerned, 
announcing  his  intention  of  making  an  example  that 
would  be  remembered.  A  friend  of  the  duelists 
heard  of  their  danger,  outrode  the  officers  of  the 
law,  and  hurried  the  parties  over  the  border  into 
California. 

Mark  Twain  found  a  berth  as  city  editor  of  the  San 
Francisco  Morning  Call,  but  he  was  not  adapted  to 
routine  newspaper  work,  and  in  a  couple  of  years  he 
made  another  bid  for  fortune  in  the  mines.  He  tried 
the  "pocket-mines"  of  California,  this  time,  at  Jack 
ass  Gulch,  in  Calaveras  County,  but  was  fortunate 
enough  to  find  no  pockets.  Thus  he  escaped  the 
hypnotic  fascination  that  has  kept  some  intermittent 
ly  successful  pocket-miners  willing  prisoners  in  Sierra 
cabins  for  life,  and  in  three  months  he  was  back  in 
San  Francisco,  penniless,  but  in  the  line  of  literary 
promotion.  He  wrote  letters  for  the  Virginia  Enter 
prise  for  a  time,  but,  tiring  of  that,  welcomed  an  as- 

397 


MARK    TWAIN 

signment  to  visit  Hawaii  for  the  Sacramento  Union 
and  write  about  the  sugar  interests.  It  was  in 
Honolulu  that  he  accomplished  one  of  his  greatest 
feats  of  "straight  newspaper  work."  The  clipper 
Hornet  had  been  burned  on  "the  line,"  and  when 
the  skeleton  survivors  arrived,  after  a  passage  of 
forty- three  days  in  an  open  boat  on  ten  days'  pro 
visions,  Mark  Twain  gathered  their  stories,  worked 
all  day  and  all  night,  and  threw  a  complete  account 
of  the  horror  aboard  a  schooner  that  had  already 
cast  off.  It  was  the  only  full  account  that  reached 
California,  and  it  was  not  only  a  clean  "scoop"  of 
unusual  magnitude,  but  an  admirable  piece  of  literary 
art.  The  Union  testified  its  appreciation  by  paying 
the  correspondent  ten  times  the  current  rates  for  it. 
After  six  months  in  the  islands,  Mark  Twain  re 
turned  to  California,  and  made  his  first  venture  upon 
the  lecture  platform.  He  was  warmly  received,  and 
delivered  several  lectures  with  profit.  In  1867  he 
went  East  by  way  of  the  Isthmus,  and  joined  the 
Quaker  City  excursion  to  Europe  and  the  Holy  Land, 
as  correspondent  of  the  Alia  California,  of  San 
Francisco.  During  this  tour  of  five  or  six  months 
the  party  visited  the  principal  ports  of  the  Mediter 
ranean  and  the  Black  Sea,  From  this  trip  grew 
The  Innocents  Abroad,  the  creator  of  Mark  Twain's 
reputation  as  a  literary  force  of  the  first  order. 
The  Celebrated  Jumping  Frog  of  Calaveras  County  had 
preceded  it,  but  The  Innocents  gave  the  author  his 
first  introduction  to  international  literature.  A  hun 
dred  thousand  copies  were  sold  the  first  year,  and 
as  many  more  later. 

398 


A    BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH 

Four  years  of  lecturing  followed — distasteful,  but 
profitable,  Mark  Twain  always  shrank  from  the 
public  exhibition  of  himself  on  the  platform,  but  he 
was  a  popular  favorite  there  from  the  first.  He  was 
one  of  a  little  group,  including  Henry  Ward  Beecher 
and  two  or  three  others,  for  whom  every  lyceum  com 
mittee  in  the  country  was  bidding,  and  whose  cap 
ture  at  any  price  insured  the  success  of  a  lecture 
course. 

The  Quaker  City  excursion  had  a  more  important 
result  than  the  production  of  The  Innocents  Abroad. 
Through  her  brother,  who  was  one  of  the  party,  Mr. 
Clemens  became  acquainted  with  Miss  Olivia  L. 
Langdon,  the  daughter  of  Jervis  Langdon,  of  Elmira, 
New  York,  and  this  acquaintance  led,  in  February, 
1870,  to  one  of  the  most  ideal  marriages  in  literary 
history. 

Four  children  came  of  this  union.  The  eldest, 
Langdon,  a  son,  was  born  in  November,  1870,  and 
died  in  1872.  The  second,  Susan  Olivia,  a  daughter, 
was  born  in  the  latter  year,  and  lived  only  twenty- 
four  years,  but  long  enough  to  develop  extraordinary 
mental  gifts  and  every  grace  of  character.  Two 
other  daughters,  Clara  Langdon  and  Jean,  were  born 
in  1874  and  1880,  respectively,  and  still  live  (1899). 

Mark  Twain's  first  home  as  a  man  of  family  was 
in  Buffalo,  in  a  house  given  to  the  bride  by  her  father 
as  a  wedding  present.  He  bought  a  third  interest 
in  a  daily  newspaper,  the  Buffalo  Express,  and 
joined  its  staff.  But  his  time  for  jogging  in  harness 
was  past.  It  was  his  last  attempt  at  regular  news 
paper  work,  and  a  year  of  it  was  enough,  He  had 

399 


MARK    TWAIN 

become  assured  of  a  market  for  anything  he  might 
produce,  and  he  could  choose  his  own  place  and 
time  for  writing. 

There  was  a  tempting  literary  colony  at  Hartford ; 
the  place  was  steeped  in  an  atmosphere  of  antique 
peace  and  beauty,  and  the  Clemens  family  were 
captivated  by  its  charm.  They  moved  there  in 
October,  1871,  and  soon  built  a  house  which  was 
one  of  the  earliest  fruits  of  the  artistic  revolt  against 
the  mid-century  Philistinism  of  domestic  architecture 
in  America.  For  years  it  was  an  object  of  wonder 
to  the  simple-minded  tourist.  The  facts  that  its 
rooms  were  arranged  for  the  convenience  of  those 
who  were  to  occupy  them,  and  that  its  windows, 
gables,  and  porches  were  distributed  with  an  eye  to 
the  beauty,  comfort,  and  picturesqueness  of  that 
particular  house,  instead  of  following  the  traditional 
lines  laid  down  by  the  carpenters  and  contractors 
who  designed  most  of  the  dwellings  of  the  period, 
distracted  the  critics,  and  gave  rise  to  grave  dis 
cussions  in  the  newspapers  throughout  the  country 
of  "Mark  Twain's  practical  joke." 

The  years  that  followed  brought  a  steady  literary 
development.  Roughing  It,  which  was  written  in 
1872,  and  scored  a  success  hardly  second  to  that 
of  The  Innocents,  was,  like  that,  simply  a  humor 
ous  narrative  of  personal  experiences,  variegated 
by  brilliant  splashes  of  description;  but  with  The 
Gilded  Age,  which  was  produced  in  the  same  year, 
in  collaboration  with  Mr.  Charles  Dudley  Warner, 
the  humorist  began  to  evolve  into  the  philosopher. 
Tom  Sawyer,  appearing  in  1876,  was  a  veritable 

400 


A    BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH 

manual  of  boy  nature,  and  its  sequel,  Huckleberry 
Finn,  which  was  published  nine  years  later,  was  not 
only  an  advanced  treatise  in  the  same  science,  but 
a  most  moving  study  of  the  workings  of  the  un 
tutored  human  soul,  in  boy  and  man.  The  Prince 
and  the  Pauper  (1882),  A  Connecticut  Yankee  at  King 
Arthur's  Court  (1890),  and  Pudd'nhead  Wilson  (first 
published  serially  in  1893-94),  were  all  alive  with  a 
comprehensive  and  passionate  sympathy  to  which 
their  humor  was  quite  subordinate,  although  Mark 
Twain  never  wrote,  and  probably  never  will  write, 
a  book  that  could  be  read  without  laughter.  His 
humor  is  as  irrepressible  as  Lincoln's,  and  like  that, 
it  bubbles  out  on  the  most  solemn  occasions;  but 
still,  again  like  Lincoln's,  it  has  a  way  of  seeming, 
in  spite  of  the  surface  incongruity,  to  belong  there. 
But  it  was  in  the  Personal  Recollections  of  Joan  of 
Arc,  whose  anonymous  serial  publication  in  1894-95 
betrayed  some  critics  of  reputation  into  the  absurdity 
of  attributing  it  to  other  authors,  notwithstanding 
the  characteristic  evidences  of  its  paternity  that 
obtruded  themselves  on  every  page,  that  Mark 
Twain  became  most  distinctly  a  prophet  of  human 
ity.  Here,  at  last,  was  a  book  with  nothing  ephem 
eral  about  it — one  that  will  reach  the  elemental 
human  heart  as  well  among  the  flying-machines  of 
the  next  century  as  it  does  among  the  automobiles 
of  to-day,  or  as  it  would  have  done  among  the  stage 
coaches  of  a  hundred  years  ago. 

And  side  by  side  with  this  spiritual  growth  had 
come  a  growth  in  knowledge  and  in  culture.  The 
Mark  Twain  of  The  Innocents,  keen-eyed,  quick  of 

401 


MARK    TWAIN 

understanding,  and  full  of  fresh,  eager  interest  in 
all  Europe  had  to  show,  but  frankly  avowing  that  he 
' '  did  not  know  what  in  the  mischief  the  Renaissance 
was,"  had  developed  into  an  accomplished  scholar 
and  a  man  of  the  world  for  whom  the  globe  had  few 
surprises  left.  The  Mark  Twain  of  1895  might  con 
ceivably  have  written  The  Innocents  Abroad,  al 
though  it  would  have  required  an  effort  to  put  him 
self  in  the  necessary  frame  of  mind,  but  the  Mark 
Twain  of  1869  could  no  more  have  written  Joan 
of  Arc  than  he  could  have  deciphered  the  Maya 
hieroglyphics. 

In  1873  the  family  spent  some  months  in  England 
and  Scotland,  and  Mr.  Clemens  lectured  for  a  few 
weeks  in  London.  Another  European  journey  fol 
lowed  in  1878. 

A  Tramp  Abroad  was  the  result  of  this  tour,  which 
lasted  eighteen  months.  The  Prince  and  the  Pauper, 
Life  on  the  Mississippi,  and  Huckleberry  Finn  ap 
peared  in  quick  succession  in  1882,  1883,  and  1885. 
Considerably  more  amusing  than  anything  the 
humorist  ever  wrote  was  the  fact  that  the  trustees 
of  some  village  libraries  in  New  England  solemnly 
voted  that  Huckleberry  Finn,  whose  power  of  moral 
uplift  has  hardly  been  surpassed  by  any  book  of 
our  time,  was  too  demoralizing  to  be  allowed  on  their 
shelves. 

All  this  time  fortune  had  been  steadily  favorable, 
and  Mark  Twain  had  been  spoken  of  by  the  press, 
sometimes  with  admiration,  as  an  example  of  the 
financial  success  possible  in  literature,  and  sometimes 
with  uncharitable  envy,  as  a  haughty  millionaire, 

402 


A    BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH 

forgetful  of  his  humble  friends.  But  now  began  the 
series  of  unfortunate  investments  that  swept  away 
the  accumulations  of  half  a  lifetime  of  hard  work, 
and  left  him  loaded  with  debts  incurred  by  other 
men.  In  1885  he  financed  the  publishing-house  of 
Charles  L.  Webster  &  Co.  in  New  York.  The 
firm  began  business  with  the  prestige  of  a  brilliant 
coup.  It  secured  the  publication  of  the  Memoirs 
of  General  Grant,  which  achieved  a  sale  of  more 
than  600,000  volumes.  The  first  check  received 
by  the  Grant  heirs  was  for  $200,000,  and  this  was 
followed  a  few  months  later  by  one  for  $150,000. 
These  are  the  largest  checks  ever  paid  for  an  author's 
work  on  either  side  of  the  Atlantic.  Meanwhile, 
Mr.  Clemens  was  spending  great  sums  on  a  type 
setting  machine  of  such  seductive  ingenuity  as  to 
captivate  the  imagination  of  everybody  who  saw  it. 
It  worked  to  perfection,  but  it  was  too  complicated 
and  expensive  for  commercial  use,  and  after  sinking 
a  fortune  in  it  between  1886  and  1889  Mark  Twain 
had  to  write  off  the  whole  investment  as  a  dead  loss. 

On  top  of  this  the  publishing-house,  which  had 
been  supposed  to  be  doing  a  profitable  business, 
turned  out  to  have  been  incapably  conducted,  and 
all  the  money  that  came  into  its  hands  was  lost. 
Mark  Twain  contributed  $65,000  in  efforts  to  save 
its  life,  but  to  no  purpose,  and,  when  it  finally  failed, 
he  found  that  it  had  not  only  absorbed  everything 
he  had  put  in,  but  had  incurred  liabilities  of  $96,000, 
of  which  less  than  one- third  was  covered  by  assets. 

He  could  easily  have  avoided  any  legal  liability  for 
the  debts,  but  as  the  credit  of  the  company  had  been 

4°3 


MARK    TWAIN 

based  largely  upon  his  name,  he  felt  bound  in  honor 
to  pay  them.  In  1895-96  he  took  his  wife  and 
second  daughter  on  a  lecturing  tour  around  the 
world,  wrote  Following  the  Equator,  and  cleared  off 
the  obligations  of  the  house  in  full. 

The  years  1897,  1898,  and  1899  were  spent  in 
England,  Switzerland,  and  Austria.  Vienna  took 
the  family  to  its  heart,  and  Mark  Twain  achieved 
such  a  popularity  among  all  classes  there  as  is  rarely 
won  by  a  foreigner  anywhere.  He  saw  the  manu 
facture  of  a  good  deal  of  history  in  that  time.  It 
was  his  fortune,  for  instance,  to  be  present  in  the 
Austrian  Reichsrath  on  the  memorable  occasion  when 
it  was  invaded  by  sixty  policemen,  and  sixteen  re 
fractory  members  were  dragged  roughly  out  of  the 
hall.  That  momentous  event  in  the  progress  of 
parliamentary  government  profoundly  impressed 
him. 

Mark  Twain,  although  so  characteristically  Ameri 
can  in  every  fiber,  does  not  appeal  to  Americans 
alone,  nor  even  to  the  English-speaking  race.  His 
work  has  stood  the  test  of  translation  into  French, 
German,  Russian,  Italian,  Swedish,  Norwegian,  and 
Magyar.  That  is  pretty  good  evidence  that  it  pos 
sesses  the  universal  quality  that  marks  the  master. 
Another  evidence  of  its  fidelity  to  human  nature  is 
the  readiness  with  which  it  lends  itself  to  dramatiza 
tion.  The  Gilded  Age,  Tom  Sawyer,  The  Prince  and 
the  Pauper,  and  Pudd'nhead  Wilson  have  all  been 
successful  on  the  stage. 

In  the  thirty-eight  years  of  his  literary  activity 
Mark  Twain  has  seen  generation  after  generation  of 

404 


A    BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH 

"American  humorists"  rise,  expand  into  sudden 
popularity,  and  disappear,  leaving  hardly  a  memory 
behind.  If  he  has  not  written  himself  out  like  them, 
if  his  place  in  literature  has  become  every  year  more 
assured,  it  is  because  his  "humor"  has  been  some 
thing  radically  different  from  theirs.  It  has  been 
irresistibly  laughter-provoking,  but  its  sole  end  has 
never  been  to  make  people  laugh.  Its  more  im 
portant  purpose  has  been  to  make  them  think  and 
feel.  And  with  the  progress  of  the  years  Mark 
Twain's  own  thoughts  have  become  finer,  his  own 
feelings  deeper  and  more  responsive.  Sympathy 
with  the  suffering,  hatred  of  injustice  and  oppression, 
and  enthusiasm  for  all  that  tends  to  make  the  world 
a  more  tolerable  place  for  mankind  to  live  in,  have 
grown  with  his  accumulating  knowledge  of  life  as  it 
is.  That  is  why  Mark  Twain  has  become  a  classic, 
not  only  at  home,  but  in  all  lands  whose  people  read 
and  think  about  the  common  joys  and  sorrows  of 
humanity. 


THE    END 


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REU  •••:*.    SEP  2-1  c 

'3                   J  1  i  '9 

5 

OCT  °9l.q<tf 

nni  A   IBRD 

Ear'  A    IfrP     A   /M/^ 

HPT    1  1    100  3 

*m          11  tl 

UU  I    1  1  It)  JJ 
1  Q  1852 

FHfl>     JUI 

AUTO  DISC  CIRC 

iCT12'93 

(EC.  cm.     MAR  1  9  1986 

OCl  151986 

\AWO.i8is&.b 

MOV  2  4  1986 

FEB  101994 

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FORM  NO.  DD6,  60m,  1  1  778          BERKELEY,  CA  94720 


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